Eversource Pushes Forward on Offshore Wind, Battery Storage as Part of $7 Billion in Development

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Eversource Energy (NYSE:ES) (Boston, Massachusetts), New England's largest energy company and transmission builder, is chalking up progress on a slew of projects, including a series of big-ticket offshore wind-energy projects in partnership with Ørsted US (Boston, Massachusetts). Battery-storage and transmission expansions also top the company's list of priorities. Industrial Info is tracking nearly $7 billion in active projects involving Eversource, including those with Ørsted.

Click on the image at right for a map Eversource's active projects.

Earlier this year, Eversource and Ørsted agreed to a 50:50 partnership in the U.S. Northeast to develop the nascent domestic market for offshore windfarms. Eversource took a 50% interest in two of Ørsted's major projects, and both companies are exploring the potential in a 257-square-mile tract off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Industrial Info is tracking four projects related to the partnership, with a total investment value estimated at more than $5 billion. Although Industrial Info's database lists these projects as only having a low chance of moving forward as planned, any one of them could significantly advance the status of offshore wind as an energy source in the U.S., which currently lags behind the U.K., Germany and China in development. These projects include:

• Sunrise Windfarm, near Montauk Point, New York, which would generate between 400 and 800 megawatts (MW). The project received a major boost in July, when New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced nearly 1,700 MW of offshore wind awards. "We are targeting an in-service date for our facilities of 2024, and we signed a memorandum of understanding with Con Ed and the New York Power Authority to work together on certain transmission facilities relating to our winning bid," said Philip Lembo, the chief financial officer of Eversource, in an earnings-related conference call earlier this month. Lembo added that Eversource is "a few months away from finalizing a contract" for Sunrise. For more information, see project report.
• Revolution Windfarm, near Providence, Rhode Island, which would generate about 400 MW. Rhode Island's Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approved a key contract for energy from the project in June. A separate contract with Connecticut already had been approved by the state's regulators, and a third contract is currently before Connecticut's regulators. For more information, see project report.
• Bay State Windfarm, near the Massachusetts coast, which would generate about 210 MW. For more information, see project report.
• Constitution Windfarm, near Providence, which would generate about 800 MW. For more information, see project report.

Eversource expects to begin construction before the end of the year on two battery-storage projects approved by Massachusetts and are among the largest in the country. The two-phase Martha Vineyard's Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) would provide up to 15 MW of backup power to the area, while the Outer Cape Battery Storage System in Provincetown would provide up to 25 MW. The company currently expects to have both up and running by the end of 2020. For more information, see Industrial Info's project reports on Martha's Vineyard Phase I and Phase II, and Outer Cape.

"[These battery-storage projects] represent $55 million of investment, 30 MW of capacity and 58 megawatt-hours of supply," Lembo said. "Local stakeholders have been very supportive of the projects, and we expect to receive all necessary land use permits by the end of the year." He later said the projects offer benefits for prices, emissions and reliability: "I think battery storage, as a package, can address a lot of those things, and then if you can combine it with intermittent resources, it even has a better application."

In addition to bolstering reliability through battery storage, Eversource is shoring up the dependability of the region's infrastructure with expansions and upgrades to transmission capacity. Three such projects are under construction: the $37.5 million Durham-to-Portsmouth transmission line in New Hampshire, running about seven miles; the $17.3 billion Walpole-to-Sharon transmission line in Massachusetts, running about 15 miles; and the $16 million East Eagle Substation in Boston, to accommodate growing electricity demand in the area. For more information, see Industrial Info's reports on the Durham-to-Portsmouth, Walpole-to-Sharon and East Eagle projects.

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