Vineyard Wind has been granted more time to negotiate off-take contracts with Connecticut utilities for electricity from the 804MW Park City Wind offshore development because of the impact of the coronavirus.
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) said it had received a letter from Vineyard Wind requesting an extension up to and including 4 May for Eversource Energy and United Illuminating Company to submit successfully negotiated contracts to the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.
DEEP said the letter states that as Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid, a subsidiary of Spanish company Iberdrola, management approvals must be sought through corporate channels based in Denmark and Spain.
It said that Vineyard Wind had added that the coronavirus pandemic has led to severe dislocations in communications and business operations and, therefore, negotiations, review and approval of contracts was taking longer than normal.
DEEP said in response it “believes the requested extension of time is appropriate”.
But, it added, the “department encourages Vineyard Wind and the companies to complete negotiations as expeditiously as possible to avoid any potential adverse impacts from a delay in the negotiations”.
Vineyard Wind had not responded to a request for comment at press time.
Park City Wind was selected by DEEP in Connecticut’s 2019 offshore wind solicitation in December last year.