The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) has unveiled a draft Request for Proposals (RfP) filed with the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) to invite bids to procure 3.6 GW of offshore wind capacity, to be developed in the US state of Massachusetts. The capacity would represent 25% of the state’s annual electricity demand and an increase over the previous procurement, which sought 1.6 GW of offshore wind. The Request for Proposals will enable the state of Massachusetts to select projects ranging between 400 MW and 2.4 GW. Under the proposed timeline, bids for this round 4 tender will be due before 31 January 2024.
Massachusetts already has 3.2 GW of offshore wind capacity under contract, including the 800 MW Vineyard Wind 1 project, currently being developed by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). In January 2023, the DPU approved the Power Purchase Agreements for the 1.2 GW Commonwealth Wind and the 480 MW Mayflower offshore wind projects in Massachusetts; the DPU approved the PPAs for 405 MW out of the planned 480 MW of the Mayflower project (a first PPA for an initial 804 MW phase of the Mayflower project was approved in 2020).
In March 2022, the House of Representatives of Massachusetts passed a bill setting an offshore wind capacity target of 5.6 GW by 2027 (up from a proposed 4 GW target). At the federal level, the United States targets 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 and 15 GW of floating offshore wind capacity by 2035 (only 42 MW were operational at the end of 2021).
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