Avangrid, a US renewable energy company majority-owned by Spanish Iberdrola, has received the authorisation to build and operate its New England Wind offshore wind farms from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). This is the final approval needed from BOEM for the two projects offshore Massachusetts totalling 2.6 GW, following the federal agency’s Record of Decision (ROD) in April.

BOEM now approved the Construction and Operations Plan (COP) for the New England Wind 1 and 2 offshore projects, formerly known as Park City Wind and Commonwealth Wind, setting the first of the two offshore wind farms on a path to begin construction as soon as next year.

The approval largely completes the federal, state, and local permitting process for the 791 MW New England Wind 1 project, Avangid / Iberdrola said in a press release on 1 July.

The COP for the two projects includes up to 129 wind turbines making up a combined capacity of up to 2.6 GW. The plan also includes five electric service platforms and up to five offshore export cables transmitting electricity to onshore transmission systems in the Town of Barnstable and Bristol County, Massachusetts.

Avangrid submitted both New England Wind 1 and New England Wind 2 projects into the multi-state offshore wind solicitation organised jointly by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, whose decision on the selected projects is expected in August.

In the multi-state solicitation, the company proposed the New England 1 offshore wind farm with a generation capacity of 791 MW and New England 2 with a generation capacity of 1,080 MW.

Avangrid is already building an offshore wind farm in the federal waters offshore Massachusetts with the Vineyard Wind 1 project well under construction and set to become the largest US offshore wind farm once in operation with an installed capacity of 806 MW.

The US arm of Iberdrola, Avangrid, is currently majority-owned by the Spanish renewable energy developer (81.6 per cent) which is on its way to acquiring full ownership of the US company. In May this year, Iberdrola and Avangrid signed an agreement under which the Spanish company will acquire the stake which it previously did not own in its subsidiary for USD 2.55 billion (approximately EUR 2.35 billion).