NatGrid files new Deepwater contract
National Grid has filed a new contract to purchase electricity from a planned wind farm off the coast of Block Island developed by Deepwater Wind.
Under the contract filed Wednesday with the R.I. Public Utilities Commission, National Grid would purchase electricity at 23.57 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2012 (the project is expected to come online in the fall of that year). As with the previous contract, the price of the electricity would increase 3.5 percent per year, meaning that the price would rise to 24.4 cents a kilowatt-hour in 2013, the same price proposed in a contract rejected by the PUC in March as being too expensive.
Under provisions in this contract, however, National Grid said any reductions in the cost of constructing or operating the $205.4 million facility would not be captured as profit by Deepwater but instead would be reflected in a lower electricity price. Read more…
