Plans to provide offshore wind power to New York City through the Empire Wind 2 project have been scrapped due to challenging “economic circumstances,” however, a company executive has hinted the project might not be completely dead.
A joint venture between Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company Equinor and British multinational oil and gas company BP, Empire Wind 1 and Empire Wind 2 were approved in November last year. Combined, they were expected to have a total capacity of 2,076 megawatts, enough to power 700,000 homes per year.
According to the energy company, Empire Wind 2 was terminated due to “commercial conditions driven by inflation, interest rates, and supply chain disruptions” that prevented its existing OREC agreement from being viable.
“This agreement reflects changed economic circumstances on an industry-wide scale and repositions an already mature project to continue development in anticipation of new off-take opportunities,” the statement said.
Empire Wind 2 Could Return in Another Form
Molly Morris, president of Equinor Renewables Americas, said that “ambitious projects” of this scope must have “commercial viability” to proceed.However, she also hinted that Empire Wind 2 might not be completely dead in the water, calling the contract cancellation a “reset,” foreshadowing that the project could return in some form. Although, she didn’t provide any further details as to what that might entail.
“The Empire Wind 2 decision provides the opportunity to reset and develop a stronger and more robust project going forward,” Ms Morris said.
“We will continue to closely engage our many community partners across the state, as evidenced by the progress at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. Our offshore wind activity is ready to generate union jobs and significant economic activity in New York,” she added.
Empire Wind 1 and Empire Wind 2 only recently hit a key federal permitting milestone after receiving a federal record of decision from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). At this stage, Empire Wind 1’s OREC agreement is unchanged. Empire Wind 2 was expected to account for the lion’s share of the project’s 2,076 megawatts output, and it’s unclear if anything will be done to offset the loss of Empire Wind 2’s capacity of 1,260 megawatts.
