Joe Biden’s green energy plans just took another hit as three large New York offshore wind projects were scrapped Friday after the state was unable to reach “final agreements” with General Electric despite the fact that the three proposed developments had received provisional awards in October 2023.
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NYSERDA, the state authority in charge of the deals, announced Friday that no final agreements could be reached with the three projects that received provisional awards in October 2023. Those bids were all linked to major supply chain investments by General Electric and a larger turbine it planned to build that was aimed at boosting the region’s renewable energy portfolio.
The news is not good for Joe Biden:
[The cancellation is] a major hit to the industry in the state and the nation.
The decision is another setback to New York’s aspirations to achieve 70 percent renewable energy by 2030 and be a hub for the nascent industry in the United States. It will also be another challenge for President Joe Biden’s already likely out-of-reach 30 gigawatt goal for offshore wind by 2030.
NYSERDA issued a complicated and wordy statement that basically just seemed to say, things got real complicated:
“Subsequent to the provisional award announcement, material modifications to projects bid into New York’s third offshore wind solicitation caused technical and commercial complexities between provisional awardees and their partners, resulting in the provisionally awarded parties’ inability to come to terms,” NYSERDA wrote in an announcement.
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Doreen Harris, President & CEO of NYSERDA, sounded a confident note and claimed the projects were canceled because the technology is still developing:
However, local fishermen seemed happy to see the projects scuttled:
Such highly-hyped offshore projects have been running into more headwinds as of late:
The offshore wind industry is stumbling despite the availability of generous tax credits contained in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate bill. Inflation, higher borrowing costs and logistical problems are gumming up projects and contracts that appeared lucrative and viable around the time that Biden signed the IRA into law.
Biden’s 2030 target continues to fall further out of reach with Friday’s cancellation, as Reuters reported in November 2023 that the goal already appeared to be unattainable given headwinds in the industry.
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The turbines are also allegedly causing whale deaths:
New Data Shows Offshore Wind Farms Responsible for Whale Slaughter. Where Are the Environmentalists?
Officials vowed they will continue to push for the unsightly technology and that they remain committed to their goals of getting more projects online by 2030. There’s no denying, however, that these cancellations remain a major setback to such efforts.