I wanted to make sure these were, literally, dead in the water before I said something about them. Wind projects in blue states do tend to be like zombies - they rise from the grave over and over again thanks to desperate cultist governors and the pressure on them from true believers. Well, and the money to be grifted.

But it does look like you can stick a fork in these three pipe dreams - they're done.

The funny thing is, these three projects were only awarded contracts because of the wholly unexpected event of the New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) doing the right thing last October. They failed to buckle under developers' blackmail demands for egregious rate increases on already signed contracts for other wind projects.

OMG I am giddy.

CALL A WIND WAAHMBULANCE

We got ourselves a coder here!

New York rejects Orsted, Equinor, BP requests to charge more for offshore wind

New York regulators on Thursday denied requests by European energy firms Orsted (ORSTED.CO), Equinor (EQNR.OL), BP (BP.L) and other renewable developers to charge customers billions of dollars more under future power sale contracts.

The state denial could force some developers whose contracts may not cover project costs to scrap plans to sell power to customers in New York, cancel or delay projects, as happened with a couple of offshore wind projects in Massachusetts. Developers were looking to renegotiate contracts on four offshore wind and 86 land-based renewable projects.

With those showcase farms down the tubes (Hochul would eventually veto another farm's expedited status, which would have run a massive transmission line right through a Long Island neighborhood)(Can't piss off those voters, you know), there was a mad scramble in Climate Cult Central aka Albany to whip something - anything - together. They had to try to preserve both the governor's plans for making New York the showcase renewable energy state and prevent the 70% renewable by 2030 target from becoming a mass casualty event.

Always alert to the scent of blood in offshore waters, the sound of panicked political dog-paddling as Green Dreams try to stay afloat, and the fresh whiff of cash shuffling in the air, GE stepped forward to play Hochul's savior. 

...New York awarded the three projects after the state Public Service Commission last fall rejected a request for higher prices from other developers. The PSC drew a line in the sand that likely constrained NYSERDA’s negotiations: no price increases for competitively awarded projects.

Other early projects canceled their deals after the decision, and similar moves have upended efforts in other states.

"We've got this great idea," they said. They would build them bigger and badder.

"SOLD!" said New York.

Right up to last week when they fessed up and said they couldn't possibly do it bigger, they were going to have to do it smaller. Smaller would mean more turbines, more platforms, more everything, ergo...WE NEEDS MORE MONEY.

The PSC reiterated the "nope," GE said "adios," and the post-mortem this week has everyone weeping bitter Green tears.

It's frickin' great.

Even better? They couldn't get through even the first part of the renewables requiem en pace without whinging about the possibility of?

You guessed it.

And I'm ded.

In the rush to save New York’s offshore industry from collapse last fall, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration bet big on three new wind farms — and even bigger on General Electric, a blue chip American company founded in Schenectady in 1892.

A win would be just the kind the Biden administration is looking for: Pairing clean energy with union jobs and domestic manufacturing.

But the bet was a losing one.

For months, it’s been clear GE Vernova, a spinoff of GE, couldn’t deliver the crucial parts all three wind farms were forced to use. And, late last week, New York officials announced all three projects are dead in the water.

Industry and environmental groups moved to downplay the fallout, but 2024 was supposed to be offshore wind’s year. Instead, it’s looking more like the disastrous 2023, where several projects in New York and New Jersey were canceled or had to be reworked because of inflation and supply chain issues.

New York’s projects were key to President Joe Biden meeting his energy goals for the nation. The struggles of projects in the Northeast during his administration are a major setback for the industry and the woes could be much worse if former President Donald Trump, who is openly hostile to offshore wind, wins this fall.

WAAH NO WIND IF THE BAD ORANGE MAN WINS WAAH WE DISAPPOINTED POTATUS WAAH ORANGE MAN BAD WAAH

It was a dang developer shell game again, anyway. GE was playing to what the state wanted to see right at that moment thanks to the other deals in flames, not what was actually possible. Even little old me - I'm no industry expert, I only play one here at HotAir - knew that GE was moving away from the big turbines as early as May of last year. I wrote a whole post about the problems the industry was having with the oversized turbines eating them alive with cost and warranty issues.

...Even General Electric is saying that wind turbines got too big, too fast and they’re pulling back. Well, hello.

Wind turbines have become too complex and it’s time to pull back on niche models and streamline operations, GE’s onshore wind boss says.

Turbine builders like GE have tried to combat declining power purchase agreements (PPAs) and shrinking tax credits with “faster product launches, more variants, more product derivatives”, GE onshore wind head Vic Abate told the GE 2023 investor conference.

And they were going to build these fools in NY...big turbines, what?

Not hardly. I'll lay you money GE was going to walk the whole time if they couldn't pull off the substitution. The government may be blind as rabid bats, but business has an eye on the bottom line all the time.

...The irony of GE’s troubles was that it was supposed to be a panacea for the offshore wind industry’s supply chain issues. The company proposed building two factories along the Hudson River in the Albany area to make blades and nacelles — the inner guts of the turbine that transform the energy from the spinning blades into electricity.

But GE couldn’t deliver the larger turbine it had promised developers and New York officials, so the company wanted the three wind developers to buy more smaller turbines. That blew up the balance sheet for the wind projects because each extra turbine would require massive underwater foundations, more labor and availability of specialized ships, which are already scarce.

“New York was clearly swinging for the fences here in trying to secure a really marquee manufacturing facility,” said Fred Zalcman, head of the New York Offshore Wind Association. “The bids were so tethered to the GE turbine play that when that aspect of the project fell apart, it really had some significant ripple effects.”

Hochul is still planning on throwing more money at bad bargains, trying like hell to keep her and the true believers who support her efforts to destroy the state's Green dreams above water.

...All of it, though, is a frustrating setback for environmental groups and state regulators eager to lower emissions through renewable projects.

“Government seems to be unable to implement,” said Costa Constantinides, a former New York City councilmember and CEO of the Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens.

“It just keeps us on track where we’re not on track to meet our climate goals, and that’s worrisome. The families that need relief, that [New York’s climate] law is centered on — that I know that the governor cares about and that the elected officials care about — those residents are still not any closer to relief than they were yesterday,” he added.

The "families need relief" line is a hoot. Chasing renewables hasn't done anything BUT make misery for everyone.

You have to take what relief from the Green scourge you can get, and this is some of it.

We need some of that Orange scrubbing power to wipe this clean.

Oh, those WAAHs are gonna be so worth it.