Avangrid, Town of Barnstable Reaffirm Host Community Agreement for New England Wind 1 Project
09 July 2024 - 1:32AM
Business Wire
With Federal, State, and Local Permitting
Nearly Complete, Shovel-Ready New England Wind 1 Could Start
Construction as Soon as Next Year
Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), a leading sustainable energy company
and member of the Iberdrola Group, today announced that the company
and the Town of Barnstable have reaffirmed the Host Community
Agreement (HCA) for the New England Wind 1 offshore wind project
landing at Craigville Beach through a side agreement entered into
by Park City Wind LLC and the Town. The side agreement, a
supplement to the original HCA signed by Park City Wind and the
town in May 2022, was announced at a Barnstable Town Council
meeting on Thursday, June 27, 2024. The side agreement serves as a
complement to the HCA, providing additional financial and
supportive benefits to the Town building on the original
agreement.
“Avangrid is proud of its productive and longstanding working
relationship with the Town of Barnstable, and we are pleased to
reaffirm the Host Community Agreement that ensures the Town and the
entire region will benefit from the development of our New England
Wind 1 project,” said Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra. “As we
continue construction on our nation-leading Vineyard Wind 1 project
and advance New England Wind 1, we look forward to continued
collaboration with the Town and our many valued stakeholders
throughout the region.”
“I am pleased that the Town of Barnstable will receive
additional protections and benefits under this agreement with the
New England Wind 1 project,” said State Senator Julian Cyr
(D-Truro). “Barnstable has led the nation in the advancement of
a clean energy future powered by offshore wind. I’m particularly
encouraged by the alignment of the next phase of Barnstable’s sewer
plan with the New England Wind 1 project, saving the Town the cost
of repaving the newly sewered roadway that instead will be repaved
by the wind project following their work.”
In March 2024, Avangrid submitted multiple proposals for the New
England Wind projects to the Massachusetts-Rhode Island-Connecticut
Multi-State Procurement for Offshore Wind. The states are
anticipated to announce selected projects from the competitive
procurement in August 2024. The side agreement provides further
certainty for New England Wind 1, an exceptionally advanced and
shovel-ready project that is prepared to begin construction as soon
as 2025.
The side agreement provides several additional direct benefits
to the Town of Barnstable, community mitigation efforts towards
future construction of the New England Wind 1 project, and robust
health and safety measures for construction and operation of the
project. Through the new agreement, Avangrid will provide $16M in a
Host Community Payment to the Town within sixty days of the
project’s financial close, accelerating the original payment
schedule that was to take place over a 20-year period. The side
agreement also provides for Avangrid to pay the Town an additional
$5.5 million payment for post construction streetscaping; an
additional $2.4 million to help defray the Town’s sewer
construction costs; and a $500,000 donation to the Barnstable High
School Environmental Science and Technology Lab. Avangrid will also
reimburse local businesses and cultural institutions impacted by
construction of the project’s onshore utility infrastructure.
The agreement provides detailed information on the future
construction of New England Wind 1, including Avangrid’s commitment
to fully repave all public roadways associated with onshore
construction, and to work closely with the Town on coordinated
construction through the Centerville Historic District following
thorough stakeholder engagement with Barnstable residents and
business owners.
New England Wind 1 offers extraordinary certainty and viability.
In addition to securing its interconnection and advancing critical
grid upgrades, in April 2024 the Department of the Interior
announced a Record of Decision (ROD) approving the project, with
approval of the project’s Construction and Operations Plan
anticipated for July 2024. The ROD builds on the project’s complete
state, regional, and local permitting, as well as a signed a
Project Labor Agreement with the Massachusetts Building Trades. If
selected in the current competitive procurement, the project can
begin construction as soon as next year and achieve commercial
operations before the end of the decade, helping achieve ambitious
2030 state climate targets set by the New England states.
New England Wind 1 also offers transformational economic
opportunities for the region, including catalyzing a new staging
and assembly port in Salem; bringing an offshore wind davit crane
manufacturer to New Bedford, Massachusetts; locating Operations and
Maintenance facilities in Bridgeport, Connecticut and New Bedford;
and delivering an offshore wind training hub with Survival Systems
USA at the Port of Davisville in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
New England Wind 1 offers enough clean, reliable energy to power
approximately 400,000 homes and reduce emissions equivalent to
taking 300,000 gasoline-based cars off the road annually. The
project will create more than 4,400 full-time equivalent jobs, and
bring $3 billion of direct investment to the region.
In June 2024, Avangrid announced that it placed 10 turbines into
production for the nation-leading Vineyard Wind 1 project, making
Vineyard Wind 1 the largest operating offshore wind farm in United
States.
Vineyard Wind began offshore construction in late 2022, achieved
steel-in-the-water in June 2023, and completed the nation’s first
offshore substation in July 2023. Construction flows through the
New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal. In July 2021, Vineyard Wind
signed the first Project Labor Agreement for an offshore wind
project in the United States, which outlined the creation of 500
union jobs through the project. In December 2023, project
shareholders announced that Vineyard Wind 1 has delivered nearly
double of its commitment through the PLA by creating 937 union jobs
through two years of construction.
An 806-megawatt project located 15 miles off the coast of
Martha’s Vineyard, Vineyard Wind will generate electricity for more
than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, create 3,600 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) job years,
save customers $1.4 billion over the first 20 years of operation,
and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million
metric tons per year, the equivalent of taking 325,000 cars off the
road annually.
About Avangrid: Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR) aspires to be
the leading sustainable energy company in the United States.
Headquartered in Orange, CT with approximately $45 billion in
assets and operations in 24 U.S. states, Avangrid has two primary
lines of business: networks and renewables. Through its networks
business, Avangrid owns and operates eight electric and natural gas
utilities, serving more than 3.3 million customers in New York and
New England. Through its renewables business, Avangrid owns and
operates a portfolio of renewable energy generation facilities
across the United States. Avangrid employs approximately 8,000
people and has been recognized by JUST Capital as one of the JUST
100 companies – a ranking of America’s best corporate citizens – in
2024 for the fourth consecutive year. In 2024, Avangrid ranked
first among utilities and 12 overall. The company supports the
U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals and was named among the
World’s Most Ethical Companies in 2024 for the sixth consecutive
year by the Ethisphere Institute. Avangrid is a member of the group
of companies controlled by Iberdrola, S.A. For more information,
visit www.avangrid.com.
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Media Contacts:
Avangrid Craig Gilvarg craig.gilvarg@avangrid.com (857)
998-1130
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