Dive Brief:

• Offshore wind developer Deepwater Wind announced a partnership with Tesla this week to pair a 144 MW offshore wind farm with a 40 MWh battery storage system. 
• The project will be located off the coast of New Bedford Mass. and is in response to a joint request from the state's utilities and Department of Energy Resources for proposals (RFP) to obtain 9,450,000 MWh of clean energy. 
• Deepwater Wind said that if the project clears approval, construction should be finished in 2022 and operations begin in 2023. 

Dive Insight:

Deepwater and Tesla, two powerhouse clean energy companies, are pairing up for the biggest offshore wind and battery storage project so far. The 144 MW project was submitted as a bid for a 15-20 year contract under the RFP to help the state meet its goal of 1,200 MW of new renewable energy.

The Revolution Wind project would be located 30 miles off the coast near New Bedford. According to a Deepwater Wind press release, the wind farm and storage system would help Massachusetts meet two policy goals: the 1,200 MW of new renewables and open the door for more offshore wind development, key to the state meeting its separate goal of 1,600 MW of offshore wind by 2027. This project, however, will not count toward the offshore wind target since it was not submitted as a bid under its recent RFP, a spokesperson from Deepwater Wind said. 

Deepwater Wind is already a familiar name in the offshore wind sector. The developer successfully completed the United States' first offshore wind project, the 30 MW Block Island wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island. Deepwater Wind is also working on offshore wind projects in Maryland and New York's Long Island, and plans to submit a separate offshore wind project for an RFP by Massachusetts utilities for 400 MW of the resource. 

Tesla's batteries have historically been linked to solar-plus-storage projects, but the company has since announced projects that would help store and dispatch intermittent wind energy during high peak periods. One such project is in Australia. 

The Deepwater/Tesla proposal isn't the only project contending for the Massachusetts RFP contracts. Five companies announced bids under the RFP for transmission projects to ship renewable energy and hydropower from nearby states and Canada. Existing Massachusetts wind farms and solar projects were not eligible.

Projects will be chosen by Jan. 25 2018; contract negotiations are expected to be completed by March 27 and sent to regulators by April 25 for review.