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With Energy Deal, Ocean Winds Now Behind Mayflower

The co-owner of the Mayflower Wind development that is slated to start generating clean power for Massachusetts from ocean winds in late 2025 has combined forces with another developer under a new name — Ocean Winds.

The 804-megawatt offshore wind project planned for waters south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is — or was — a joint venture of Shell and EDP Renewables Offshore North America. EDP Renewables previously announced that it and developer ENGIE would combine to form a new venture called Ocean Winds and on Monday announced the launch of the North American arm of that company, OW North America, which takes the place of EDPR North America as 50% owner of Mayflower Wind.

Officials from the new company said OW North America "will be one of the largest pure offshore wind development enterprises in the world, and will start in a strong position in the highly attractive markets on both the East and West Coasts."

Globally, the company has 1.5 gigawatts of offshore wind generation capacity under construction and another 4 gigawatts under development, OW said.

Mayflower Wind was picked unanimously by utility executives to build and operate a wind farm to fulfill part of a 2016 clean energy law. The Baker administration last week approved long-term contracts for the power and the project is expected to provide the state and its electric ratepayers with total economic benefits of about $2.4 billion over the next two decades. OW North America said the Mayflower Wind lease area could support a second roughly 800-MW turbine array.

OW North America will also assume EDPR North America's role in the public-private partnership that is working to develop a wind farm that could be built on floating platforms off the coast of Humboldt County in northern California. The Redwood Coast floating offshore wind project draws on the experience some European nations have with floating offshore wind, an idea that is also attracting attention in the Gulf of Maine.

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