PROVIDENCE – Eversource Energy LLC is a step closer to selling its stake in Revolution Wind and two other offshore wind projects, CEO Joe Nolan said during Monday’s third-quarter conference call.
Nolan said Eversource has “substantially completed our contract negotiations with a buyer and continued to make good progress” in the sale of its half of three of its offshore wind projects with Orsted A/S, a Danish utility company, including Revolution Wind 15 miles off the coast of Rhode Island, Sunrise Wind in New York and South Fork Wind in Long Island, N.Y. He added that the unnamed buyer must now formalize several documents, including a new joint venture with Orsted.
“We expect this process to wrap up shortly, allowing us to execute our sales agreement with the buyer and announce the terms of the sale,” Nolan said.
On May 12, Nolan announced the company was “derisking the business” and that Eversource planned to sell all of its offshore interests before July 1 of this year.
In 2019, Eversource paid $225 million for a 50% stake in projects led by Orsted. The joint venture included the Revolution Wind and South Fork Wind Farm projects, as well as a “highly coveted” 257-square-mile tract off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. On May 25, Orsted purchased that area for $635 million, which has a potential capacity of up to 4 gigawatts.
Despite Eversource Energy’s efforts to sell its stake in Revolution Wind, on Nov. 1 Orsted declared that it and Eversource were committed to the 704-megawatt project off the coast of Rhode Island, a “final investment decision” that came the same day that Orsted scrapped two large offshore wind projects off the coast of New Jersey.
The decision on Revolution Wind marks the commencement of the full scope of construction of the 65-turbine wind farm about 15 nautical miles southeast of Point Judith in Narragansett, the companies said.
When completed, the project will deliver 400 megawatts of wind power to customers in Rhode Island and 304 megawatts to customers in Connecticut, powering more than 350,000 homes in total. Orsted and Eversource say construction is projected to “ramp up” next year, with the wind farm expected to be operational in 2025.
On Aug. 22, the proposed Revolution Wind project received a “record of decision” from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, calling the approval “a major milestone in the federal environmental review process.” The developers now have their eyes on BOEM approval for its construction and operations plan, which they anticipate the bureau will OK later this month.
Another proposed Orsted/Eversource wind project, Revolution Wind 2, was denied by Rhode Island Energy on July 18. Rhode Island Energy said that proposal to add 600 to 1,000 megawatts of new offshore wind power off the state’s coast did not meet all the requirements as detailed in the Affordable Clean Energy Security Act.
Eversource, which serves 4.4 million customers across Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, reported a third-quarter profit of $339.7 million with revenues of $2.79 billion.
