Bluewater Wind has been relatively quiet since the announcement last fall that the company had been acquired by NRG Energy, but that doesn’t mean lots hasn’t been happening behind the scenes. The company’s founder, Peter Mandelstam – who will remain president of Bluewater Wind and will serve as head of NRG’s offshore development efforts – said they were very proud to join the NRG family of companies.
“We really had our choice of where to sell Bluewater, and we are proud of David Crane’s commitment,” Mandelstam said of the NRG president and CEO. “NRG’s commitment to increase its portfolio of low- and no-carbon-generation assets, and its membership in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, is a good fit with Bluewater Wind’s mission to provide clean, stable-priced, renewable energy.”
About a month after the acquisition, Bluewater Wind was named one of four companies to supply power from renewable sources to the State of Maryland. The award to provide up to 55 megawatts (MW) from wind generation will be NRG Bluewater’s second power-purchase agreement (PPA) in the region, the first being their 25-year, 200-megawatt power-purchase agreement with Delmarva Power. They are negotiating the final terms and expect to have the agreement finalized in the near future.
The project will now be referred to as the “Mid-Atlantic Wind Park” and will be able to serve both Maryland and Delaware from the same location from east of Cape Henlopen. A second project site is planned for off the New Jersey shore.
“Our state is a leader in clean energy, and the results of this initiative demonstrate Maryland’s commitment to the clean energy technologies of today as significant building blocks towards a smart, green and growing Maryland,” remarked Maryland Gov. O’Malley – who, in partnership with the University System of Maryland – announced the results of the Generating Clean Horizons initiative this past December.
Bluewater Wind has also received two of the five meterological (met) tower leases given out by the Department of the Interior – one in Delaware and one in New Jersey. The towers are expected to be constructed in the summer of 2010. Those towers will be placed right in the middle of each of the proposed project areas.
Mandelstam explained they already have eight years of NOAA buoy data, but the met towers can provide them with data from 90 feet above sea level. He said they also have avian radar so they can continually monitor birds and bird activity around the area in which the windmills will be placed. “We want to do more than the minimum needed,” he emphasized.
Mandelstam said the offshore wind summit hosted by Secretary Ken Salazar of the U.S. Department of the Interior in February was a very important meeting for the region as a whole. O’Malley attended, along with Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, as well as the governors from Virginia, Rhode Island, Maine, and Massachussetts.
“Gov. Markell talked, and the Secretary said he got the message loud and clear,” noted Mandelstam. “Interior needs to move quickly to permit these projects.”
In an offshore wind forum address in early February that called for state and federal cooperation to bring jobs and clean energy, Markell alluded to the message he was bringing to Salazar.
“Our message will be simple: while much progress has been made, we need to accelerate the MMS processes,” Markell said. “The state teams are doing a great job working on the Requests for Information for the ocean leases, but two to three months is too long for documents to be finalized.
“If we don’t get these documents out in the coming weeks, we could threaten another year of data collection and delays,” Markell noted. “We must bring currently developed projects to construction as quickly as possible and pave the way for more projects in the future. We need to ensure that the NEPA process is streamlined and efficient. And we must stop treating offshore wind like offshore oil and gas – the economics are different and the long term consequences of development are certainly different.”
Mandelstam said that, with all the preliminary work that has been done, the federal permitting process window is still “not officially open.” The process goes through the Minerals Management Service – the federal agency that manages the nation’s natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf.
“If you started today to permit a project from scratch, it would be 7.5 years from beginning to permitting,” explained Mandelstam. “That’s more than a nuclear plant,” he emphasized. “One could argue [wind energy] is much more straightforward.”
For more information on what this project means to Delaware and Maryland residents, or technical or specific questions, visit www.bluewaterwind.com.
