Avangrid, the parent company of Central Maine Power, agreed this month to pay $48 million to terminate a power purchase agreement it signed with offshore wind developer Commonwealth Wind.
From Commonwealth Magazine:
“The $48 million termination payment will be paid in three installments to the utilities — $25,900,800 to Eversource, $21,619,200 to National Grid, and $480,000 to Unitil – and the money will be reimbursed to ratepayers, according to filings with the Department of Public Utilities, which approved the power purchase agreement at the end of last year and must now approve the termination agreement.”
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The deals will allow the offshore wind developers, who claimed the war in Ukraine, rising interest rates, inflation, and supply chain disruptions made it impossible to finance their projects without pricing adjustments, to move on from those deals and rebid the projects at higher prices in the state’s next procurement in 2024.
According to the report, Shell and Ocean Winds North America, the developers on a separate Mass.-based wind power project, are seeking a similar termination agreement.
The implosion of under-contract offshore wind power developments in Massachusetts has big implications for Maine.
Constructing massive wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine has been a top priority for Gov. Janet Mills and most Democratic lawmakers. They theorize that constructing the turbines will reduce carbon emissions associated with Maine’s electrical grid, thereby mitigating the impacts of climate change.
LD 1895, a bill that would create a construction port on Maine’s coast where the turbines could be assembled, is one of the few remaining items of business on the Legislature’s agenda.
Over the past several years, wind power backers have attempted to reckon with the environmental impact of the turbines, the disruption to fisheries, and the role of union labor in building the port and working on future projects.
However, the news from Massachusetts points to what might be a bigger concern: financial feasibility.
Electricity generated from offshore wind is, on average, nearly three times as expensive as onshore wind power and is 3.4 times more expensive than power produced at natural gas generators, according to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Offshore wind also faces higher overhead costs than onshore wind.
Backers of offshore wind believe those higher energy costs, which will ultimately be shouldered by resident and commercial ratepayers, are justified because of the theorized impact on global temperatures the turbines will have.
But the cancellation of other New England area offshore wind projects due to profitability problems raises the question of whether Maine’s windpower backers are realistically portraying the scale of cost increases associated with the project.
5 Comments
Commercial fishermen are keeping their fingers crossed that this trend continues. There is a reason Mills is trying to rush this, money. It is bad enough the destruction caused by these solar panel farms covering hundreds of acres. Lets leave the ocean ecosystems alone, please.
Green = Socialism. What’s so hard to understand. No CMP corridor. Now no power line though Albion. No coal, wood, LNG, oil and god forbid atomic. Wind mills, solar farms and fiery dust all the way. Pray tell how do we get the magical energy from point A, to your Prius? Unicorns prancing on rainbow highways carrying it in recycled plastic buckets perchance?
Hate to burst anyone’s bubble that is hoping the Maine offshore wind contract will also be cancelled. Mills is signing a bill today that will start that project. This article says the Maine Lobstering Union is for this bill.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/wind/maine-to-go-all-in-on-offshore-wind
Build two nuke plants at 1,000 MW each and they will supply nearly 100% of Maine’s electricity needs. The fuel IS recyclable and Nuclear is VERY kind to the atmosphere!
Build 4-6 of the SMR reactors that take 2yrs to permit, 2 yrs to build.
Wind and solar are such a folly, one that has been proven around the world over and over, including here in our own state.
Rates are skyrocketing, NOT because of the lack of availability of fuel, but instead due to having to increase rates to pay the subsidies to the companies that reap huge profits at the expense of the rate payers.