Iberdrola and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners have restructured their Vineyard Wind offshore wind joint venture in the US.
The deal will see Iberdrola subsidiary Avangrid Renewables take full ownership of the 804MW Park City Wind and the 1.2GW Commonwealth offshore wind projects, both of which had been pursued in partnership with the Danish company.
Park City Wind is an advanced project off Connecticut with a power purchase agreement secured and permitting underway. Commonwealth Wind submitted a bid for up to 1200MW to the third Massachusetts offshore wind competitive solicitation.
Under the deal, Iberdrola will also take an option to take full control of the 800MW Vineyard Wind 1 project off Massachusetts during the operational phase. This will be the first commercial scale offshore wind farm in the US, with construction set to commence in the coming weeks.
CIP meanwhile is to become the 100% owner of the OCS-A 522 federal lease area, which can accommodate up to 2.5GW of offshore wind.
The Danish firm said it will also receive a net payment of $167.5 million from Avangrid Renewables at closing, expected in the next six months.
“The restructuring will allow CIP and Avangrid Renewables to focus on their own expansion plans in the US offshore wind market and better align project timelines with the sponsors’ strategic objectives,” added the company.
“We strongly believe in the fundamentals of offshore wind and we see significant growth opportunities in the US offshore wind market. We have been front runners in the US offshore wind market by taking Vineyard Wind 1 to financial close, and we are looking forward to doing the same with the projects to be developed in lease area 522,” said Michael Hannibal, Partner in CIP.
“We are fully committed to developing the 522 lease area and will use the best in class experiences of our US team to advance these exciting projects quickly and efficiently.”