Dong Energy has marked its entry into the offshore wind market outside of Europe by acquiring RES Americas Developments Inc’s 1-gigawatt development portfolio rights off the coast of Massachusetts.
Financial details were not disclosed. RES secured the rights to the projects from a wind auction held by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in late January. The BOEM has given its approval for Dng Energy to acquire and develop the projects.
“The US is an interesting market for offshore wind with the potential to become a significant area for future development,” said Samuel Leupold, Dong’s Executive Vice President of Wind Power We already have a number of post 2020 projects in our pipeline in North-Western Europe that we will continue to develop. With the takeover of the offshore wind development project in the US, we will broaden our geographical scope and follow the market potential outside of our current footprint.”
A draft policy bill to support the regulatory conditions for offshore wind has been introduced with the Massachusetts government aiming to provide a stable framework that will enable the build-out of projects and the creation of new jobs.
The Massachusetts lease has a total size of 760 square kilometres and is located approximately 90 kilometres from shore. Water depth is between 40-50 metres.
“The site conditions are quite similar to those we currently work with in North-Western Europe which means that the project could be developed using well-known technology and logistics,” said Leupold.