EDP Renewables and ENGIE announced that they have combined their existing and planned offshore wind efforts to form a new company, Ocean Winds (OW). After launching OW in Europe, the two companies are now unveiling the U.S. arm of the new company: OW North America.
Regulators around the world, including U.S. authorities, have approved the merger of EDPR and ENGIE’s offshore wind businesses allowing OW to begin life with 5.5GW of committed offshore assets, with 1.5GW of projects under construction and 4.0GW under development. They have a target of reaching 5 to 7GW of projects in operation or under construction and 5 to 10GW under advanced development by 2025.
OW North America is a 50% owner of Mayflower Wind, a company that was successful in a state-sponsored competitive auction which resulted in contracts to deliver 804MW of offshore wind energy to the Massachusetts utilities and their customers by the middle of this decade.
Mayflower Wind’s federal lease area, awarded in December 2018, has the potential to reach over 1600MW. In addition, OW North America is a partner in the Redwood Coast floating offshore wind project, building on its experience developing floating projects in Europe, in particular Windfloat Atlantic – a fully operational floating offshore wind farm that is supplying clean affordable energy to the electricity customers of Portugal.
OW will fill EDPR’s role in the Redwood Coast public-private consortium committed to developing an offshore wind project utilizing floating platform technology off the coast of Humboldt County in Northern California. The project’s customers will include consortium member Redwood Coast Energy Authority, a community choice aggregator established by local governments in Humboldt County.
“OW will be a major element in creating the new clean, sustainable, and prosperous economy that Americans are demanding and OW North America can help to build that future,” said OW CEO Spyros Martinis, adding, “OW North America fro
m Day One is in the business of developing and delivering real offshore wind projects.”
