Offices of the energy company Equinor photographed in Norway on February 6, 2019.
Odin Jaeger | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Norway’s Equinor has won an important contract to supply renewable energy to the state of New York from two huge offshore wind farms located in East Coast waters.
In an announcement on Wednesday, the company said it was the “largest” offshore wind business ever awarded in the United States – and also “one of the largest renewable energy acquisitions in the United States to date”.
Under the agreement, Equinor and its partner BP will supply New York with renewable energy from the Empire Wind 2 and Beacon Wind 1 projects.
The two companies will also work with New York to develop the South Brooklyn Ferry Terminal and the Port of Albany in what Equinor described as “large-scale offshore wind industrial facilities”.
Last year, BP agreed to acquire a 50% stake in Equinor’s Empire Wind and Beacon Wind projects, in an agreement that is expected to close in early 2021.
The Empire Wind 2 and Beacon Wind 1 projects will have a capacity of 1,260 and 1,230 megawatts (MW) respectively. The contract announced on Wednesday will complement another energy deal for the 816 MW Empire Wind 1 project. Capacity refers to the maximum amount that facilities can produce, not what they are currently generating.
When fully completed, Equinor says that the general projects for Empire Wind and Beacon Wind will each be able to supply more than a million homes.
In a statement, Equinor CEO Anders Opedal described the United States’ East Coast as “one of the most attractive growth markets for offshore wind energy in the world”.
While it may have potential, the United States is still far from equaling other parts of the world when it comes to scale.
The country’s first offshore wind farm – the 30 MW Block Island Wind Farm with five turbines, operated by the Danish company Orsted – only started operating in late 2016.
In comparison, Europe is home to a number of major offshore wind projects. Last November, Orsted announced that the 752 MW Borssele 1 & 2 offshore facility was fully up and running, claiming it could provide enough electricity to power 1 million homes.
In plans drawn up at the end of last year, the European Union said it wanted its offshore wind capacity to reach 300 gigawatts by the middle of the century.
Although Equinor and BP are trying to develop more renewable energy projects, they remain important in the oil and gas sector.