ESG & Industry Updates

In another move forward against Climate Change, Massachusetts will be home to the United States' first utility-scale offshore wind project. Vineyard Wind, about 35 miles off the Mass coast, will produce up to 800 megawatts of electricity, powering 400,000 homes and businesses across the Commonwealth, dropping carbon emissions by up to 1.6 million tons per year. 

The project has faced years and years of legal challenges and other issues, from environmental studies to lawsuits from local residents of Nantucket. As of today (9/28/2023), Nantucket residents have actually filed another suit (Saturday September 26) with the First Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a district court ruling dismissing their prior lawsuit. The current suit centers on the allegation that federal authorities failed to consider the best evidence regarding impacts on endangered right whales in the area that would be effected by the project. 

Construction began in 2021, with cable laying to bring turbine power to the offshore substation. The turbines themselves began being constructed this past summer. The final project will include 62 turbines, each close to 850 feet tall. The project will be underway until 2024, but spokesmen for Avangrid (one of the project partners) expressed confidence that initial power generation would be online by the end of 2023.

One of the more recent confounding issues for Vineyard Wind is economic uncertainty in the general economy, particularly around offshore wind projects themselves. Supply chain, energy prices, rising interest rates, and labor issues have pushed costs for all building, and particularly turbine project building, through the roof. 

We wrote an article for Oil & Energy's September issue discussing the Vineyard Wind project and its current status. You can read that full article here: Construction Begins at Massachusetts' Utility-Scale Offshore Wind Project  

(For more articles & info on Climate & Carbon topics in general, go here: Climate Change)

Independent research organization Climate Central published a report recently that showed how the national capacity for solar and wind generated power shot up in 2022. The report comes just as the Biden Administration begins rolling out billions of dollars to renewable energy projects as part of its commitment to decarbonizing the grid completely by 2030 and getting the US to net zero emission by 2050.

Here are some of the key points from the report:

• The US generated over 680K of electricity from solar & wind (combined) in 2022, which equates out to about $82 billion of revenue generation. 
• Solar & Wind capacity increased by 16% year over year from 2021 - that's enough of an increase to cover the electricity generation needs of approximately 64 million American homes. 
• Texas, Oklahoma, and Iowa let the nation in wind production
• A myriad of State incentives helped encourage different states to up production, including a California's mandate on solar panels for new buildings, Iowa's tax credits for wind generation, etc. 
• Larger States had more impressive gains than smaller, more densely populated ones. Smaller, more dense areas are less able to take advantage of space for larger scale generation projects - a good example of this is the growth we see in Texas or Iowa versus New England States, which haven't made similar gains despite also having incentives. 

We wrote an article for Oil & Energy Magazine that goes further into the points, the holdups to progress on renewables, and what the future looks like it might hold. If you are interested, you can read that article in its entirety here: Solar and Wind Growth Soars in 2022

In March, RENEW Northeast and the American Clean Power Association (ACPA) filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) asking the agency to find that ISO New England market rules “provide undue preference to natural gas only resources” and to direct the grid operator to fix its ruled to end that preference.

The allegation is based on how the reliability is weighted for natural gas versus “intermittent” resources like solar and wind. For example, solar is scored lower for reliability based on winter supply issues, wind turbines are lowered through summer months based on projected output, but natural gas is presumed to have 100% reliability despite growing concerns that capacity problems in the Northeast Region would potentially make gas inaccessible under full winter loads in extreme situations. If you recall, natural gas capacity in the region has been a concern for quite some time. 

We wrote an article for Oil & Energy in April laying out the details and basis of the complaint, as well as how the capacity auction works and served to generate this complaint. You can read that article in its entirety here: Renewable Advocates Target ISO New England

Brayton Point in Somerset was once the largest coal-fired plant in Massachusetts, and was the last to be decommissioned in 2017.

The plan for the site has been to develop it into Massachusetts' first major offshore wind manufacturing facility, as an integral part of the Commonwealth's approach to its renewable energy portfolio. 

This February, Governor Baker and State Officials announced that a 47 acre parcel of the property would be sold to Prysmian Group, who will manufacture high tech subsea transmission cables on the site that will be used to  bring offshore wind generated electricity back on site and into the grid. 

Prysmian is looking to invest up to $300 million dollars in the Brayton Point facility, and would create a projected 250 high paying jobs on site. Part of the enticement to the project for Prysmian was assurance from Avangrid Renewables that the manufactured cables would be used for the Commonwealth Wind projects, as well as the parallel project in Connecticut (Park City Wind). Avangrid is also the joint partner with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners on the Vineyard Wind Project. 

Vineyard Wind (off Martha's Vineyard) is set to be the first large-scale offshore wind project in the country. Approved by the Biden Administration last year, the Vineyard Wind project will consist of up to 84 wind turbines and expected to produce 800 megawatts of power, or enough to power 400,000 homes. 

Back to Brayton Point - Mayflower Wind (also off Martha's Vineyard) will generate 400 megawatts, and feed into the Brayton Point site.  Mayflower will also be building a converter station at Brayton Point to facilitate movement of wind generated electricity into the grid. Mayflower also has said its proposal includes $42 million additional dollars in on-shore development and have proposed establishing an operations and maintenance facility at a former industrial site in Fall River and plan to utilize a Somerset based company for a crew transfer vessel for employees as well.  

This investment on local infrastructure and the tax revenue that involved facilities will generate, not to mention the creation of plentiful higher paying jobs for the area is a huge positive for Southeastern MA, an area that has been impacted over the decades by phase outs of manufacturing and changes in the fishing industries that were once the lifeblood of the area.  

Overall, Massachusetts looks poised to really be in the lead when it comes to offshore wind generation as we watch multiple projects come together. As the Governor said at the gathering in February "One of the biggest challenges we will all face as we go forward from here is figuring out how to get the generation where it needs to go" - that is a problem that the development of Brayton Point seeks to help alleviate. 

I wrote an article for the March issue of Oil & Energy Magazine on the Brayton Point site redevelopment, you can read that article in its entirety here: Revisiting Brayton Point: Offshore Wind Brings New Life to Closed Coal Site 

(Below: Brayton Point Currently (left), and to the right, a rendering of the proposed redevelopment)

The Biden Administation has the ambitious goal of bringing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind online by 2030, and 1.4 of those gigawatts are slated to come from the New England coast. 

The move toward more offshore wind is part of the goal of reducing US carbon emissions in half by 2030, a goal that dovetails nicely with goals set by the New England region's member states on climate action. ISO New England's 2021 outlook report released in April outlines some of the anticipated advances, including both the 1.4 gigawatts of offshore wind, 3.5 gigawatts of solar power, and 800 transmission project to connect clean energy projects by 2030. 

All of the New England region's states have set specific carbon goals that line up with (or exceed in some cases) the Federal Government's goals.  These include:

• Connecticut: zero-carbon electricity by 2040
• Maine: Carbon Neutral by 2045
• Massachusetts: 80% renewable energy by 2050 (more details on MA here: MA Climate Change & Environmental Justice Bill)
• New Hampshire: 25% renewable energy by 2025 (no specific zero carbon goal outlined)
• Vermont: 90% renewable energy by 2050
• Rhode Island: zero-carbon electricity by 2050 

On the wind front specifically, Rhode Island is the only New England state with a currently operational wind farm, but the Vineyard Wind Project set to bring offshore wind online in Massachusetts received federal approval in March, and is projected, upon completion, bring 800 megawatts of power to businesses and homes throughout the state. 

I wrote an article for Oil & Energy Magazine detailing some more of the specific goals for the Wind push - you can read it in its entirety here:  Wind Ho! Biden's Offshore Wind Plan Bolster's New England's Clean Energy Goals