Catch up on the latest news from the USA's renewable energy industry in our renewables roundup.
This month’s top story is once again focused on the offshore wind an industry that is really taking off in the US at the moment.
The US is to hold an offshore wind lease sale for two areas in the Carolinas on May 11th, the lease area covers over 110 acres in the Carolina Long Bay area that if developed could result in at least 1.3GWs of offshore wind energy enough to power nearly 500,000 homes.
National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito said: "A recent Wood Mackenzie study commissioned by National Ocean Industries Association and other groups found that a Carolinas Lease Sale could support 37,200 jobs, $3 billion in annual wages, $233 million in state tax creation and $44.9 billion in capital investment during the development and construction phase of the projects. The Carolina Long Bay lease sale will keep up American offshore wind momentum beyond the U.S. Northeast."
First Solar have agreed terms on a multi year master supply agreement with Silicon Ranch they will supply 4GWs of advanced thin film photovoltaic modules to Silicon Ranch’s US projects from 2023-2025, the contract includes a recycling clause under which end of life Cad Tel modules can be processed through First Solar’s recycling program recovering around 90% of Cad Tel materials that can then be used to manufacture new modules.
This is not the only big order First Solar have recently agreed as they also closed a deal with Origis Energy for 750MW of their thin-film modules for their US projects.
US floating wind developer Trident has submitted a lease request for the proposed 2GW Olympic Wind project off the coast of Washington state. The plan outline included permitting, development, construction, operation and maintenance of the project, it is planned to be sited around 70km offshore in water depth ranging 500-1300 meters with wind speeds around eight meters per second and could be in operation as early as 2030.
Greenbacker Capital experienced record growth in 2021 raising almost $1billion in new investor capital, in a successful year for the investment group they almost tripled their assets, they expanded their wind operations in the Midwest and deployed $1.1billion in capital and investments more than doubled.
Vineyard Wind who are building one of the first commercial offshore wind projects in the US at 800MWs off the coast of Massachusetts, have announced they are launching a new company called Vineyard Offshore using the expertise gained from Vineyard Wind 1 project to deliver up to 4GWs of offshore wind across New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Invenergy has received approval for a 300MW solar and 165MW battery storage project in Wisconsin. The Koshkonong Solar Energy Center project goes into construction in the fall with project completion date scheduled for the end of 2024. This is not the first solar plus storage project Invenergy is working on in Wisconsin, with a 200MW solar PV and 110MW BESS in Kenosha County that was approved in December 2020 and another one in Walworth and Rock Counties with 250MW of solar energy and 75MW of BESS waiting for approval.
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And we'll have more news from the renewable roundup next month.