Delaware's offshore wind park has been delayed several times, now it appears the offshore wind power project has reached the end of the line.
In a press release, David Crane, NRG Energy President and CEO stated, “Our people have worked hard and we’ve made a considerable financial investment in the Wind Park, but that effort cannot overcome the difficult and unfortunate realities of the current market. We’re not giving up, but at this moment we can’t rationally justify further investment in this project without the prospect that it can move forward within a reasonable timeframe.”
Bluewater Wind has been developing the Delaware site since summer 2006. Delaware's congressional delegation pushed hard for the offshore wind farm project. But the outlook for outshore wind project has changed dramatically since Bluewater Wind was acquired by NRG Energy, Inc. in November 2009.
As the NRG press release states: "A little more than two years later, the outlook for offshore wind and for the Delaware project has changed dramatically. In particular, two aspects of the project critical for success have actually gone backwards: the decisions of Congress to eliminate funding for the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program applicable to offshore wind, and the failure to extend the Federal Investment and Production Tax Credits for offshore wind which expire at the end of 2012 and which have rendered the Delaware project both unfinanceable and financially untenable for the present."
NRG say that they are not giving up, just putting the project on hold. But their actions look more like the end of the line as Bluewater Wind intends to terminate the project’s power purchase agreement with the Delmarva Power at the end of the year as well as close its Bluewater Wind development office.
The failure to find an investor for the project, even with a long term power purchase agreement with Delmarva Power and state approval for the project's first round of permits, doesn't raise any hope for getting the project up and running anytime soon.
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