- A New 600 MW capacity will be added to the State’s power grid.
The State of Rhode Island’s Senate has approved a new bill that will foster the deployment of 600 MW of offshore wind in the state water and cause some changes in the State’s existing law. Earlier in the week, the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island announced that Bill 2022-S 2583A would be passed to the House of Representatives.
According to the new bill, the state’s main electricity and natural gas supplier, Rhode Island Energy, will now have to solicit bids for 600 MW of offshore wind capacity. The new capacity will be added to the power grid of the state. Also, the market-competitive procurement that was to be held by August 15 2022, now has a new date of October 15 2022.
In addition, the bill cancels out the incentive related to the ratepayer’s participation. It affords the state Public Utilities Commission an increased level of authority to decision making regarding disputed items in the contract between the utility and the developer. The legislation also conceives an application process that is publicly transparent, placing demands on offshore wind developers to provide information on possible environmental impacts through the submission of environmental and fisheries mitigation plans and estimates of local economic benefits.
The new law is in tandem with the 2021 Act on Climate, which states climate emissions reduction targets with an apex goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Rhode Island is home to the first US offshore wind farm, the 30-MW Block Island facility, and is also set to receive 400 MW from the Revolution Wind offshore project of Denmark’s Ørsted A/S and US utility Eversource Energy.