New York promises Great Green Lakes with offshore wind plan

One of America's most high-profile renewable energy projects took a major step forward this week when the New York Power Authority (NYPA) issued requests for project proposals to build an offshore wind farm on the Great Lakes.

The Authority announced on Earth Day in April that it wants to erect between 120MW and 500MW of wind-generating capacity on the state's two Great Lakes, Erie and Ontario. Issuing the requests for proposals this week, the Authority promised that projects would be awarded to developers within the next year.

Under the plans, the new wind farm or farms are expected to come online by 2015, and provide power to the regional grid via a power purchase agreement with the New York Independent System Operator. The deadline for agreeing on the PPA is the end of May 2011.

Significantly, the NYPA has taken a similar approach to the Canadian province of Ontario's recently launched renewable RFP policy and will aim to ensure much of the economic value from the project will remain in the state. It said that it will give more favourable consideration to proposals that include the use of local labour and materials, to drive economic benefits from the large-scale wind project.

The NYPA proposal is not the only offshore wind project to be taking form on the Great Lakes. Canadian energy giant Canadian Hydro has acquired a similar 4.4 gigawatt project from wind energy specialist Wasatch Wind, while a number of other companies are known to be exploring offshore wind projects in the region, including US energy firm Duke Energy.

However, the NYPA claims that its project is one of the furthest advanced and will be the first offshore wind project on a large body of freshwater anywhere in the US.