New York offshore wind solicitation support

New York offshore wind solicitation support

Overview

We supported the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) in designing an inflation adjustment mechanism for its fifth large-scale offshore wind solicitation. This was to address concerns over developer defaults caused by rising costs.
Our offshore wind solicitation support included:
• Contributing to a Request for Information (RfI) to gather stakeholder feedback,
• Recommending appropriate commodity indices, weightings, and cost of capital assumptions,
• Developing an indexing algorithm and advising on key adjustment milestones, and
• Supporting the drafting of a Request for Proposal (RfP) incorporating the final indexing approach.

Key challenges

  • Need to accurately track relevant commodity price changes over time
  • Reflecting real project cost exposure without overcompensating
  • Alignment with NYSERDA’s policy and procurement timelines, and
  • Getting buy-in from a broad group of stakeholders with varying interests.

Key impact

  • Provided structured offshore wind solicitation support way to adjust offshore wind strike prices in line with actual market conditions
  • Significantly reduced the risk of future project defaults
  • Set a precedent for future solicitations

BVGA team

Alun Roberts

Matt Knight

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