A new study by The Brattle Group estimates New York would save $500 million through a planned transmission strategy for its next 7,200 MW of offshore wind versus the generator lead line (GLL) approach.

The new study for Anbaric Development Partners reaches similar conclusions to one Brattle did for the company in May on the potential benefits of planned and networked transmission development for southern New England. (See Brattle Study Highlights Benefits of Offshore Grid.)

In the New York study, Brattle estimated onshore upgrade costs of $500 million under a planned approach, compared to $2 billion for GLLs, a savings of $1.5 billion. That would be partially offset by increased offshore transmission costs for the planned approach — $6.1 billion vs. $5.1 billion for GLLs — primarily because of the use of HVDC technology.

Brattle said there could be additional savings of 20 to 30% from increased competition under the planned strategy.

The study, buttressed with engineering, cost and seabed analyses by Pterra, PSC Consulting and Intertek, was presented and discussed in a webinar Thursday. The New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, Anbaric and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University hosted the virtual event, which Consolidated Edison sponsored.

Following is some of what we heard at the event.

Hurry Up and Wait

Joe Martens, director of the New York Offshore Wind Alliance and former commissioner of the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, referred to the Accelerated Renewables Growth and Community Benefit Act enacted in April as part of a budget bill that aimed to speed up the state’s clean energy transition.

“In addition to completely rewriting the way renewable energy is sited in New York, and establishing very strict timetables, [the act] was an acknowledgement that we were really good at entering into contracts, but not so good siting and getting projects built,” Martens said. “We’re at about a 27% renewable penetration in the electricity sector today in New York, and 20% of that is legacy hydro projects upstate, so we have a long way to go.”

The siting law also called for a study by year-end of the transmission system, both onshore and offshore, he said.

The Public Service Commission in May approved such a study to identify distribution upgrades, local transmission upgrades and bulk transmission investments needed to meet the state’s clean energy goals of 70% renewable electricity by 2030 (20-E-0197). (See NYPSC Launches Grid Study, Extends Solar Funding.)

The PSC and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority also issued a white paper in June, and one question in it regarded the second OSW solicitation for up to 2,500 MW, Martens said.

“One of the big questions was how to approach transmission in this second solicitation,” Martens said. “In the first solicitation, it was decided that a so-called radial system, where the developer designs and builds the transmission just to accommodate their project, was the right approach because we don’t have any commercial-scale offshore wind projects to date, and we wanted to get the program up and running as quickly as possible.”

However, even during the phase one solicitation, people raised the question about looking at a network system, as the state anticipates “multiple projects being built, not just off New York, but across our sister states to the north and south,” he said.

The white paper proposed that for the second solicitation, developers build radial transmission lines because “the potential for a backbone network remains speculative, primarily because there is still a lot of uncertainty about where new wind energy areas would be located and how soon they would be leased in the New York Bight,” Martens said. “However, the white paper acknowledged that this is still a very important issue and needed to continue to be studied.”

The PSC’s grid study includes investment plans for both the bulk and local transmission systems. “And of course, a key component of that study is the offshore wind transmission analysis, and part of that analysis is consideration of offshore network configurations,” said Tammy Mitchell, chief of bulk electric systems for the state’s Department of Public Service. “The final results of that study are due at the end of the year, and preliminary results will be available in the fall.”

Many projects are moving through the Article VII transmission siting process, and the DPS should soon be proposing rules for a nine-month process, Mitchell said.

Rules and Need

States along the East Coast cooperating on the issue would bring more opportunities for bringing OSW energy ashore where it makes sense, perhaps at shorter distances, said Kevin Knobloch, president of Anbaric subsidiary New York OceanGrid.

“Ultimately, what we’re looking for is an open-access transmission system, where there’s maximum competition among not just generators, but transmission developers, which can also be generators,” Knobloch said. “Robust competition is what will ultimately bring costs down and get this power to shore.”

New York has the greatest need for shared transmission and is in the lead to deal with it, said Kirsty Townsend, head of special projects at Ørsted.

“The IEEE standards for offshore don’t exist in the U.S., so it would be great to establish that so we can actually connect multiple wind farms into these shared infrastructures,” Townsend said. “I think some of the ISO’s market rules could [use] improving, or finding another way round in order to achieve the public policy goals. It’s something we as developers, both transmission and generation, are already struggling with, and I can see this kind of shared transmission system only exacerbating those issues, interconnection queue process rules, for example.”

Massachusetts also is interested in exploring the benefits of multistate cooperation on offshore transmission. Patrick Woodcock, commissioner of the state Department of Energy Resources, said last month that a network transmission “initiative could be achieved more effectively at a larger scale of offshore wind build-out and with regional coordination among New England states … than through a single-state procurement with limited size.” (See Mass. Nixes Separate Offshore Tx RFP.)