New York Launches Renewable Energy Tender For 2 GW

• New York has opened the 6^th annual solicitation round for over 2 GW large scale renewable energy projects
• These facilities should be commercially operational between January 1, 2015 and May 31, 2025
• Solar PV and wind energy facilities need to source some part of iron and steel for their projects from local suppliers
• Solar PV project developers need to sign SEIA's Forced Labor Prevention Pledge and evidence the commitment in their proposals
• New York has also now installed 4 GW of distributed solar PV capacity across the state, Governor Kathy Hochul announced

New York State in the US has launched its 6^th annual competitive solicitation for 2 GW or more of large scale renewable energy projects as it chases the 2030 target of generating 70% of its electricity from renewables.

Through this tender round dubbed RESRFP22-1, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) seeks to procure close to 4.5 million tier I eligible Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) from eligible facilities. These should have had come online either on or after January 1, 2015 or will assume commercial operations till May 31, 2025' unless extended to May 31, 2028'.

Winning projects are expected to mobilize nearly $3 billion in clean energy investments and generate enough power to provide electricity to at least 600,000 homes.

For solar PV facilities entering the fray, it has made it mandatory for the companies to sign Solar Energy Industries Association's (SEIA) Forced Labor Prevention Pledge and evidence the commitment as part of step 2 of the bid proposal.

Another significant feature is for the applicants to ensure certain portion of steel and iron for solar and wind facilities comes from domestic sources based on the nameplate capacity.

Interested companies can register on NYSERDA's solicitation website and submit applications by November 16, 2022 under step 1. Under step 2, they will need to submit bid proposals to be accepted till February 9, 2023. Details of the tender are available on NYSERDA's website.

This round follows 5^th round launched in April 2021 which the state back then called the largest land based solicitation to date for the state (see 5^th Annual RE Solicitation Launched In New York).

While announcing the 6^th solicitation round, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the state has now installed 4 GW distributed solar capacity across community, residential, small commercial and industrial projects under NY-Sun initiative. These can power over 710,000 homes. More than 1.2 GW was installed in H1/2022 alone.

It is now on track to exceed 6 GW of distributed solar by 2025 and progress towards 10 GW by 2030 (see 10 GW Distributed Solar By 2030 For New York).

Hochul also shared that under NY-Sun, New York has seen the cost of solar drop by 70% since solar deployment has grown nearly 2,900% statewide. It has created more than 12,000 jobs and brought in $6.4 billion private investment.