The State of New York in the US has launched its 5th annual renewable electricity solicitation calling it the largest land based solicitation to date for the state. It aims to procure close to 4.5 million MWh of renewable electricity annually under this round—Renewable Energy Standard (RES) request for proposals (RESRFP21-1).
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has specified it will consider projects certified as tier 1 renewable technology and have come online on or after January 1, 2015, and will be starting commercial operations on or before November 30, 2023, unless extended to November 30, 2026. Tier I technologies are identified as solar PV, solar thermal, on-land and offshore wind, hydroelectric, fuel cells, tidal/wave/ocean, geothermal electric, and geothermal ground source heat.
Winning developers can expect to be notified by NYSERDA in late 2021.
The solicitation process will be carried out under 2 rounds, termed step 1 and 2. Under step 1 eligibility application will be made available to proposers on May 11, 2021 and the same need to be submitted ack to NYSERDA by June 30, 2021. Details are available on NYSERDA website.
Prospective proposers will be notified by July 16, 2021 and they will have time till August 26, 2021 to submit their step 2 proposals.
Under the previous 4 rounds, NYSERDA has contracted more than 90 new large scale land based renewable energy facilities including solar farms, onshore wind farms and hydroelectric farms, some with energy storage component.
The announcement came from the Officer of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo who said more than 20 large scale renewable energy infrastructure projects will be under construction across New York state in 2021, including the 1st utility scale solar project in upstate New York with 20 MW capacity entering the final phase of construction. He expects these projects to mobilize close to $1.5 billion in private investment to stimulate the state's economic recovery from COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Governor's office, New York has a pipeline of around 11 GW of solar, onshore and offshore wind power projects to enable it achieve its goal to generate 70% of its electricity from renewables as wind and solar by 2030 under Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
Last year in July 2020, New York launched a solicitation round seeking development of over 4 GW capacity calling it the largest ever combined renewable energy solicitation issued by any US state (see Largest Combined RE Solicitation Launched By New York).