OSLO, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Five companies, including Norway'sEquinor, Denmark's Orsted and France's EDFhave submitted bids to supply offshore wind power tothe New York state, the companies said on Thursday.
New York state closed bidding https://on.ny.gov/2E54m5q onThursday to provide 800-megawatts of offshore wind energy, apart of a plan develop up to 2,400 megawatts (MW) of offshorewind power by 2030, and will choose a supplier in the spring.
Equinor is planning to build a wind park on 80,000 acressouth of Long Island it won in a U.S. federal auction in 2016,with potential total capacity of up to 2,000 MW, in push todiversify its investments away from oil and gas.
Orsted, the world's largest operator of offshore wind farms,has made a joint proposal with Eversource Energy to buildan offshore wind farm, Sunrise Wind, east of Montauk Point.
EDF's renewable energy arm has made a joint bid withAnglo-Dutch oil and gas firm Shell, EDF Renewablessaid in an email to Reuters.
None of the companies have detailed their bids.
Equinor says on its website that investments for a1-gigawatt offshore wind project would typically be about $3billion.
In total, Equinor and four joint ventures, also includingEDPR, a renewable energy arm of Portuguese energy firmEDP, told the state they may be interested in biddingby Dec. 20 deadline.
EDPR was not immediately available to comment.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed in 2017 to developup to 2,400 MW of offshore wind power by 2030, or enough tosupply green energy to 1.25 million homes.
Unlike Europe, the United States is taking initial steps indeveloping the country's offshore wind capacity, but its hugemarket has already attracted key players.
Equinor, previously known as Statoil, has also said it waslooking at possibility of building floating offshore windturbines in deeper waters off the U.S. coastline.(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; editing by Susan Thomas andLisa Shumaker)