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The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has selected two projects for contract negotiation, under its first statewide offshore wind solicitation: the 880 MW Sunrise Wind project proposed by Bay State Wind, a 50-50 joint venture of Ørsted and Eversource Energy, and the 816 MW Empire Wind project proposed by Equinor. The two developers will now negotiate a 25-year offshore wind renewable energy certificate (OREC) for their projects. Bay State Wind has already awarded a conditional contract to Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) to supply offshore wind turbines for the projects, while Equinor has earmarked US$3bn for its project. Subject to contract signing and final investment decisions (FIDs), they are expected to be commissioned in 2024. With a combined capacity of 1,696 MW, they should produce enough electricity to power more than 1 million New York homes.

In January 2019, the governor of New York announced a new offshore wind capacity target of 9,000 MW for 2035, which is a nearly fourfold increase compared with the previous target of 2.4 GW by 2030. The additions in offshore wind capacity are essential in order to achieve its renewable electricity target of 70% by 2030, up from the previous target of 50%. The state also committed to 6,000 MW of solar capacity (up from 3 GW) and to double its onshore wind capacity by 2025. The state also committed itself to move to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 in December 2018, shortly after the notice of a new policy setting an electricity storage objective of 3,000 MW by 2030 with an interim goal of 1,500 MW by 2025.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Ministry of Economy of Brazil will present a detailed plan on the announced privatisation of state-owned power company Eletrobras by early August 2019. The privatisation plan will be sent to the Brazilian Congress in the aim to receive Parliamentary approval before the end of 2019. …

Norwegian investment firm Aker plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO) of Aker Energy in late 2019 or in 2020, in order to make the company a leading exploration and production company in Ghana.

India expects to reach 260 GW of renewable power capacity by 2024, since its renewable capacity is growing rapidly with more than 80 GW installed at the end of June 2019. India may surpass its target 175 GW of renewable power capacity by 2022, including 100 GW of solar and 60 GW of wind, and could reach 225 GW of renewable capacity by this date.

Argentina’s state-owned oil and gas company YPF has awarded a pre-front-end engineering design (Pre-FEED) services contract to McDermott for a 5 Mt/year liquefaction project at the Vaca Muerta shale field in the Neuquén region of Argentina. The project would tap Vaca Muerta gas resources and could later be expanded to 10 Mt/year. …

The Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (NuPEA) of Kenya has contracted China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) to select the most suitable location for the construction of the first nuclear power plant of the country. CNNC has identified three possible locations, with abundant cooling water resources: near the Indian Ocean, near Lake Victoria and near Lake Turkana.

American Electric Power (AEP) has received approval from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (United States) to retire the first 1,300 MW unit of its 2,600 MW Rockport supercritical coal-fired power plant is located in Spencer, Indiana (United States) and its units were commissioned in 1984 and 1989. …

The United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has granted a siting, construction and operation permit to Gulf LNG (Kinder Morgan group) for its proposed 10 Mt/year Gulf LNG project in Jackson County, Mississippi (United States).