MAYFLOWER WIND on Monday backed away from an effort to seek revisions in its contract to supply electricity to the state’s utilities, pledging to move ahead with the pricing in its existing power purchase agreement.
The shift came after the Department of Public Utilities told Mayflower and Commonwealth Wind that it would not grant a one-month delay so the parties could revisit the terms of the contracts.
The companies said the electricity price in their contracts needed to be revised upward in the face of the war in Ukraine, rising interest rates, supply chain difficulties, and inflation. The state’s major utilities – Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil — had balked at renegotiating the terms, and the DPU largely sided with them in its Friday evening order.
The DPU gave the wind developers three days to decide whether to push ahead with the existing contracts or back out and start over.
Commonwealth Wind, which has insisted its project is not viable without a “very modest increase” in the price for the electricity, indicated Monday morning it intends to make its case to the Baker administration, Attorney General Maura Healey, and the utilities. Commonwealth has not submitted a formal response yet to the DPU’s order.
In a filing with the DPU, Mayflower also said it intends to provide a “detailed third-party analysis demonstrating challenges to financeability, with the goal of finding solutions that provide value to ratepayers.”
But the company said it planned to seek approval of its existing contract terms.
“’Mayflower Wind is committed to meeting its contractual obligations to supply clean offshore wind power to the people of Massachusetts,” said Mayflower CEO Francis Slingsby in a statement. “We are proud of our role in meeting critical economic, climate and energy security needs and believe that working together with the utility companies and the Commonwealth we can collaboratively and successfully address and overcome the current extraordinary economic challenges.”