The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection announced plans to open two procurements for zero-carbon energy this year, including one specifically for offshore wind. The department has authority to procure about another 1,200 MW of offshore wind, but said it hasn’t determined how much, if any, it will procure this year. Speaking to state lawmakers during an Energy and Technology Committee hearing on Tuesday, DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes didn’t commit her department to selecting any bids, saying they want to evaluate how the costs would stack up against forecasts of future energy prices and see if they’re in the “best interests” of electric customers. Dykes also said she has heard anecdotally that developers have “a lot of interest” in using the New London State Pier, where the Connecticut Port Authority said last week that work has completed on the heavy-lift delivery platform that the offshore wind partnership of Eversource and Ørsted will start using this spring for staging in the construction of their South Fork Wind project. The last time DEEP took bids for offshore wind in 2019, it selected Park City Wind to sell power at $79.83 per megawatt-hour to Connecticut electric customers from Avangrid’s 804 MW project proposed to be built off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
