THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE of Avangrid told financial analysts on Thursday that he was very pleased the company was able to terminate offshore wind power purchase agreements in Massachusetts and Connecticut “at minimum cost” but was noncommittal about whether the firm will be able to sign future deals at prices that will be acceptable to the company as well as utility ratepayers.
“Our projects have been successfully terminated at minimum cost and avoiding massive writeoffs,” said Pedro Azagra, the CEO of Avangrid, referring to Commonwealth Wind in Massachusetts and Park City Wind in Connecticut. He said the termination payments of $48 million and $16 million avoided writeoffs of $1.6 billion and $1.2 billion.
Asked specifically whether the company could rebid the terminated projects at rates acceptable to both Avangrid and utility ratepayers, Azagra said that will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
“We will not run risk,” he said. “We’re not going to put in danger the financial health of the company. That’s it.”
He said the governors of New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are leading the way on renewables in the United States and Avangrid is actively supporting that effort by building Vineyard Wind 1, the first industrial-scale wind farm in the country, and constructing a transmission line to carry hydro-electricity from Quebec into New England via Maine.
“Will this continue?” he asked. “Well, sometimes things stop for a year, somethings they stop for five years or three years. But in our case what we’re [not] going do at all is to put at risk billions of dollars coming from our shareholders and lenders and basically get not only angry but get Iberdrola [the parent company of Avangrid] in danger. That’s not how we do business. In our case, we will go case by case.”