Energy auction winners announced

State officials on Friday announced the selection of 12 bids from power producers that will provide electricity from zero carbon sources to become part of Connecticut’s future energy mix.

The winning bids selected by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection were chosen from a field of over 100 renewable energy projects. The 12 bids selected by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection include:

1 Two from nuclear sourced, Connecticut’s own Millstone power plant in Waterford and the Seabrook plant in New Hampshire.

1 Nine from solar sources, six of which are out-of-state and three in Connecticut.

1 One wind project bid from Orsted US Offshore Wind.

Friday’s announcement of the winning bids is the culmination of a months long process that began this summer. State officials announced the winners of a first round of bidding in June.

Orsted was one of the winning bidders in the June auction, with DEEP selecting a a 200 megawatt bid from the company’s Revolution Wind project. This time around, DEEP selected a bid from Orsted calls for an additional 100 megawatts of power at a price lower than the previous procurement.

The additional 100 megawatts of wind power is enough to power 50,000 Connecticut homes.

“Offshore wind is fast becoming a centerpiece of Connecticut’s renewable energy future,” said Jeffrey Grybowski, who is co-chief executive of Ørsted.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and DEEP Commissioner Rob Klee touted the environmental impact the latest bid winners will have in fighting climate change.

“Make no mistake, we are facing a climate crisis with the future of the planet is at stake,” Malloy said in a statement. “Should we fail to do so, we will fail to prevent the catastrophic outcomes that will result from climate change.”

Klee said the selection of the zero-carbon “ensures that Connecticut is doing its part to address climate change.” He also acknowledged that including the two nuclear plants in the procurement mix buys the state time to develop a more robust portfolio of traditional renewable resources like wind and solar power. “We remain committed to keeping this valuable zero-carbon resource, provided that it is affordable, as we work toward long-term replacement through smart investments in offshore wind and solar paired with grid-scale storage,” Klee said in a statement. Two of the solar projects include energy storage components.

Of the entire field of bids that were submitted, 24 were from Millstone and involved various contract lengths and quantities of energy. The bid DEEP officials selected from the power plant was for a 10-year contract in which half of Millstone’s 2,100 megawatt generation capacity.

The selection of Millstone as one of the winning bidders is due in part to an intense multiyear lobbying effort by the owner of the power plant, Virginia-based Dominion Energy. Executives lobbied Connecticut legislators and state energy officials, implying that a failure to include Millstone among the winning bidders could result in the power plant being closed.

DEEP officials acknowledged Millstone’s importance as a power producer and an economic force in selection announcement. Dominion employs 1,500 people at Millstone.

But agency also directed Connecticut’s electric distribution companies, Eversource and United Illuminating, to seek a lower price from Dominion Energy as part of the contract negotiations. Those negotiations are scheduled to be completed by the end of March.

“We believe ratepayers deserve, and can get, a more competitive price for Millstone’s output,” Klee said.

Paul Koonce, Dominion Energy’s executive vice president as well as president and chief executive officer of its power generation division, did not address the DEEP directive to seek cheaper rates from the company as part of the contract negotiations.

“DEEP’s decision is good news for Connecticut’s economy and the environment,” Koonce said in a statement. “Our zero carbon offer brings at least $670 million in net benefits to Connecticut customers.”

Some energy experts and environmental groups were critical of DEEP’s inclusion of Millstone among the winning bids.

Claire Coleman, a climate and energy attorney with Connecticut Fund for the Environment, said officials with the group “are still very concerned that as a whole, these RFP choices don’t put Connecticut on the road to a clean energy economy.”

“The future is off-shore wind, solar, geothermal, and smart strategies for efficiency and energy storage, but the small investments in these newer resources compared to the heavy investment in nuclear largely don’t reflect that,” Coleman said in a statement.

Joel Gordes, a West Hartfordbased energy industry consultant, said selecting Millstone was one of the winning bidders amounts to a subsidization of the aging nuclear plant.

“The older these plants get, the more expensive they will become to maintain,” Gordes said. “They (Dominion) will be back asking for more money at some point.”

The inclusion of New Hampshire’s Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant as one of the winning bidders came as something of a surprise because its owner, Florida-based Next Era Energy Resources, had claimed it was at risk of closing and publicly sought for nuclear power to included in the bidding process. DEEP officials said the Seabrook bid was selected because of its price of 3.3 cents per kilowatt hours, which is lower than the market forecast for electric generation rates in 2022 when the eight year contract is scheduled to begin.