Nearly a year after some of the region’s largest offshore wind developers began making noises about pulling out of their projects because of increased costs, and six months after they actually did, a new round of bidding coordinated among three states appears to show that interest in developing offshore wind is still strong, even with larger price tags. A three-state solicitation by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island received project proposals from four different developers by the Wednesday deadline, two of which essentially rebid the projects they’d pulled out of. To Connecticut’s disadvantage, only one of the proposals designates the port of New London for construction and staging of the project. The rest plan to use ports in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection declined to comment on that, providing a statement that noted it would be reviewing the proposals. The largest set of proposals came from Avangrid — parent of United Illuminating and the American arm of the Spain-based energy powerhouse Iberdrola. Avangrid’s Vineyard Wind 1 project off Massachusetts is under construction and already delivering power to that state.
