EGEB: First major US offshore wind farm achieves $2.3B financial close

In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):

• At $2.3B, Vineyard Wind is one of the largest clean energy project investments in the US.
• Rochester is New York State’s largest municipality to launch a community choice clean energy program.
• UnderstandSolar is a free service that links you to top-rated solar installers in your region for personalized solar estimates. Tesla now offers price matching, so it’s important to shop for the best quotes. Click here to learn more and get your quotes. — *ad.

Vineyard Wind secures $2.3B

Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, yesterday announced that the company’s first project has achieved financial close. 

It worked with nine international and US-based banks to raise $2.3 billion in order to finance the US offshore wind project’s construction. That will enable Vineyard Wind to provide a notice to proceed to its contractors in the coming days and weeks. That means suppliers can start hiring, training, and mobilizing people to prepare for both on and offshore construction. 

Onshore work will begin this Fall in Barnstable, Massachusetts, with offshore work commencing in 2022.

The first power from Vineyard Wind 1 will be delivered to the grid in 2023. Vineyard Wind 1 is an 800 megawatt wind farm located 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. It will be the first commercial scale offshore wind project in the United States. 

Vineyard Wind CEO Lars T. Pedersen said:

Achieving financial close is the most important of all milestones because today we finally move from talking about offshore wind to delivering offshore wind at scale in the US.

You can learn more about the entire milestone Vineyard Wind project here.

Read more: First major US offshore wind farm approved

Rochester’s opt-out clean energy program

The city of Rochester, New York, has activated Rochester Community Power‘s opt-out community choice clean energy program for 57,000 residents and small businesses in partnership with Joule Community Power. Under the new program, the energy supply defaults to 100% locally sourced, fixed-rate hydropower and wind power.

Rochester is now the largest municipality in New York State to launch a community choice aggregation (CCA) program.

Opt-out community choice clean energy means that customers are automatically enrolled in the program without having to sign a contract or undergo a credit screen. Should a resident wish to disenroll from the program, they can do so at any time with no penalty.

The program will supply customers with more than 300 million kWh of renewable energy each year, avoiding roughly 225,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide over the next two years.

CCA empowers municipalities to select their own power sources and helps move New York toward its goal of 70% clean energy by 2030. 

Rochester has further committed to an opt-out community choice solar program that is expected to launch in early 2022.

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said:

We look forward to adding the community solar program early next year, which will offer guaranteed savings for the community, including many of our more than 23,000 Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) households.