Avangrid, Town of Barnstable Reaffirm Host Community Agreement for New England Wind 1 Project
With Federal, State, and Local Permitting Nearly Complete, Shovel-Ready New England Wind 1 Could Start Construction as Soon as Next Year
BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), a leading sustainable energy company and member of the Iberdrola Group, today announced that the company and the Town of Barnstable have reaffirmed the Host Community Agreement (HCA) for the New England Wind 1 offshore wind project landing at Craigville Beach through a side agreement entered into by Park City Wind LLC and the Town. The side agreement, a supplement to the original HCA signed by Park City Wind and the town in May 2022, was announced at a Barnstable Town Council meeting on Thursday, June 27, 2024. The side agreement serves as a complement to the HCA, providing additional financial and supportive benefits to the Town building on the original agreement.
“Avangrid is proud of its productive and longstanding working relationship with the Town of Barnstable, and we are pleased to reaffirm the Host Community Agreement that ensures the Town and the entire region will benefit from the development of our New England Wind 1 project,” said Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra. “As we continue construction on our nation-leading Vineyard Wind 1 project and advance New England Wind 1, we look forward to continued collaboration with the Town and our many valued stakeholders throughout the region.”
“I am pleased that the Town of Barnstable will receive additional protections and benefits under this agreement with the New England Wind 1 project,” said State Senator Julian Cyr (D-Truro). “Barnstable has led the nation in the advancement of a clean energy future powered by offshore wind. I’m particularly encouraged by the alignment of the next phase of Barnstable’s sewer plan with the New England Wind 1 project, saving the Town the cost of repaving the newly sewered roadway that instead will be repaved by the wind project following their work.”
In March 2024, Avangrid submitted multiple proposals for the New England Wind projects to the Massachusetts-Rhode Island-Connecticut Multi-State Procurement for Offshore Wind. The states are anticipated to announce selected projects from the competitive procurement in August 2024. The side agreement provides further certainty for New England Wind 1, an exceptionally advanced and shovel-ready project that is prepared to begin construction as soon as 2025.
The side agreement provides several additional direct benefits to the Town of Barnstable, community mitigation efforts towards future construction of the New England Wind 1 project, and robust health and safety measures for construction and operation of the project. Through the new agreement, Avangrid will provide $16M in a Host Community Payment to the Town within sixty days of the project’s financial close, accelerating the original payment schedule that was to take place over a 20-year period. The side agreement also provides for Avangrid to pay the Town an additional $5.5 million payment for post construction streetscaping; an additional $2.4 million to help defray the Town’s sewer construction costs; and a $500,000 donation to the Barnstable High School Environmental Science and Technology Lab. Avangrid will also reimburse local businesses and cultural institutions impacted by construction of the project’s onshore utility infrastructure.
The agreement provides detailed information on the future construction of New England Wind 1, including Avangrid’s commitment to fully repave all public roadways associated with onshore construction, and to work closely with the Town on coordinated construction through the Centerville Historic District following thorough stakeholder engagement with Barnstable residents and business owners.
New England Wind 1 offers extraordinary certainty and viability. In addition to securing its interconnection and advancing critical grid upgrades, in April 2024 the Department of the Interior announced a Record of Decision (ROD) approving the project, with approval of the project’s Construction and Operations Plan anticipated for July 2024. The ROD builds on the project’s complete state, regional, and local permitting, as well as a signed a Project Labor Agreement with the Massachusetts Building Trades. If selected in the current competitive procurement, the project can begin construction as soon as next year and achieve commercial operations before the end of the decade, helping achieve ambitious 2030 state climate targets set by the New England states.
New England Wind 1 also offers transformational economic opportunities for the region, including catalyzing a new staging and assembly port in Salem; bringing an offshore wind davit crane manufacturer to New Bedford, Massachusetts; locating Operations and Maintenance facilities in Bridgeport, Connecticut and New Bedford; and delivering an offshore wind training hub with Survival Systems USA at the Port of Davisville in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
New England Wind 1 offers enough clean, reliable energy to power approximately 400,000 homes and reduce emissions equivalent to taking 300,000 gasoline-based cars off the road annually. The project will create more than 4,400 full-time equivalent jobs, and bring $3 billion of direct investment to the region.
In June 2024, Avangrid announced that it placed 10 turbines into production for the nation-leading Vineyard Wind 1 project, making Vineyard Wind 1 the largest operating offshore wind farm in United States.
Vineyard Wind began offshore construction in late 2022, achieved steel-in-the-water in June 2023, and completed the nation’s first offshore substation in July 2023. Construction flows through the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal. In July 2021, Vineyard Wind signed the first Project Labor Agreement for an offshore wind project in the United States, which outlined the creation of 500 union jobs through the project. In December 2023, project shareholders announced that Vineyard Wind 1 has delivered nearly double of its commitment through the PLA by creating 937 union jobs through two years of construction.
An 806-megawatt project located 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Vineyard Wind will generate electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, create 3,600 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) job years, save customers $1.4 billion over the first 20 years of operation, and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million metric tons per year, the equivalent of taking 325,000 cars off the road annually.
About Avangrid: Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR) aspires to be the leading sustainable energy company in the United States. Headquartered in Orange, CT with approximately $45 billion in assets and operations in 24 U.S. states, Avangrid has two primary lines of business: networks and renewables. Through its networks business, Avangrid owns and operates eight electric and natural gas utilities, serving more than 3.3 million customers in New York and New England. Through its renewables business, Avangrid owns and operates a portfolio of renewable energy generation facilities across the United States. Avangrid employs approximately 8,000 people and has been recognized by JUST Capital as one of the JUST 100 companies – a ranking of America’s best corporate citizens – in 2024 for the fourth consecutive year. In 2024, Avangrid ranked first among utilities and 12 overall. The company supports the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals and was named among the World’s Most Ethical Companies in 2024 for the sixth consecutive year by the Ethisphere Institute. Avangrid is a member of the group of companies controlled by Iberdrola, S.A. For more information, visit www.avangrid.com.
Contacts
Media Contacts:
Avangrid
Craig Gilvarg
craig.gilvarg@avangrid.com
(857) 998-1130
