NRG Energy officials are counting on Congress to reauthorize a loan guarantee program that the firm says is "crucial" to the success of a planned wind farm off Rehoboth Beach. Right now, the planned wind farm doesn't qualify for the program because it only covers projects set to start construction by Sept. 30, 2011. And that's a year or more before the construction on the Delaware project would start. Without the federal loan guarantees, NRG would need to pay higher interest rates on any borrowing, which could cut into the project's profitability.

It was dinnertime at the League of Women Voters' retreat in Rehoboth Beach on Oct. 31 when Lisa Pertzoff learned that NRG Energy might buy Bluewater Wind. Pertzoff told the league's president, who interrupted dinner with the announcement. "There was a stunned silence," Pertzoff said, then "there were some rueful chuckles."

But if Bluewater's offshore wind farm gets built, it may have both to thank for keeping the project afloat. Bluewater lost its financial backing when its Australian parent company, Babcock and Brown, was ravaged by debt and the global economic meltdown. The wind farm developer missed a critical deadline this summer to provide a letter of credit to Delmarva, which has a 25-year contract with Bluewater to buy power from turbines off the coast of Rehoboth Beach.

Bluewater Wind expects a controlling interest in the firm to be sold in the next few weeks, and sources familiar with the plan say the company is in serious negotiations to sell to NRG Energy Inc. In selling a majority stake in the offshore wind farm company, Bluewater would get the immediate financial help it needs to keep its projects moving forward, and the backing of a large energy company that should ease the financing of billion-dollar wind farms.

Delmarva Power's four power purchase agreements with wind developers should begin paying dividends by the end of the year, with the first clean-energy electrons flowing to the state later this fall. One land-based wind farm under contract to the local utility could start sending electricity to Delaware by year's end, and another in western Maryland could get its permit soon despite concerns the turbines could harm endangered species. That project has an easier path to approval thanks to a controversial new law that exempts smaller wind farm projects from an extensive environmental vetting.

Bluewater Wind expects to name a new investor within two months, pumping badly needed capital behind its plans to build a wind farm off Delaware's southern coast. Peter Mandelstam, president of the offshore power development company, said he is confident a deal will be completed within 60 days with a new ownership partner and that Babcock and Brown, its embattled Australian financier, would be out of the project by the end of the year.

New Jersey and Delaware environmental officials say a wind farm planned for the Delaware Bay could disturb an important flyway for birds. Delsea Energy of Toms River, N.J., has a plan to construct 106 turbines in the upper Delaware Bay, on the New Jersey side of the shipping channel that divides Garden State waters from those controlled by Delaware.

With plans moving forward in New Jersey and Delaware - not to mention recent progress in Cape Wind's years-long fight in Massachusetts - it's far from certain that Deepwater and Rhode Island will succeed in their quest to be first. And make no mistake, being first is important. For the developer, it means more than just bragging rights. It gives the company a leg up on its competitors as it tries to develop additional wind farms elsewhere. For the state, it means much-needed economic development and valuable green-collar jobs.

Many residents of this quaint beach town say they are all for green energy, but when Bluewater Wind officials came to town with a concept plan to bring the power cable from their proposed offshore wind farm under their beach, boardwalk and bandstand, they had one really big question: What's in it for the town?

A project that could involve the town in the Bluewater Wind offshore wind farm project has been proposed, and officials and residents are looking at possible plans with careful eyes. Bluewater is planning to construct a wind farm several miles off the coast of Rehoboth Beach in the coming years.

Delaware may want an offshore wind farm, and the idea has won more confidence than any other similar plan in the nation. But the company that has promised it has a few challenges to overcome, not the least of which is financing. Can Bluewater find its sea legs?

Bluewater Wind says it has been given the green light to put up a testing station off the Rehoboth Beach coast, which would be the first physical manifestation of its planned offshore wind farm. Bluewater President Peter Mandelstam said Wednesday the Department of the Interior and the state of Delaware have told Bluewater it has met the requirements to construct a meteorological tower.

The Department of the Interior has given Bluewater Wind approval to build a weather testing station off Rehoboth Beach. Bluewater Wind announced Wednesday that it has approval to build two meteorological towers off Rehoboth Beach and New Jersey's coast.

In new federal permitting rules published last month, the U.S. Department of the Interior said offshore wind farm operators will need to pay 2 percent of revenues as a royalty to the federal government. That 2 percent is calculated using a formula that relies largely on the wholesale price of electricity.

The Bluewater offshore wind farm project's future remains tied to the search for an investor, and does not sink or swim with the fate of Babcock & Brown Ltd., its publicly traded parent company, the company and observers said. On Friday, bankers took control of Babcock & Brown Ltd., after investors voted down a plan to restructure the company's debt. The development further focused attention on the viability of the Bluewater Wind project here.

Gov. Jack Markell wants to end a decades-long practice of viewing energy costs exclusively in terms of dollars and cents, and start considering the long-range impact on public health and the environment. As part of the broader vision, Markell says he'll keep a close eye on Delmarva Power's long-range energy plan, a state required roadmap that is coming before the Public Service Commission. The 10-year plan will help map how the utility buys electricity, and whether it will come from sources near or far.

Delaware's Bluewater Wind will have a tough time raising the $1 billion it needs to build an offshore energy farm now that its principal backer has been financially crippled, experts said Monday. Investment groups that might have made a play for Bluewater in years past have disappeared or are "teetering on nationalization," said Brian Yerger, an alternative energy analyst and researcher with Jesup & Lamont Securities Corp. "The economics are going to have to work out perfectly right for somebody to come in and spend probably $1 billion plus" to build the wind farm."

The toppling of a major international investment firm left Delaware's offshore wind project in uncertain waters Sunday, although one project official said he was optimistic that the Bluewater Wind venture will survive. Babcock & Brown, an Australia-based company that owns "virtually all" of Bluewater Wind, announced Friday it had agreed to a controlled breakup and liquidation of the company, which was once worth $12 billion, with outright collapse and bankruptcy still an imminent threat. ...Babcock & Brown acquired the owners of the Delaware offshore wind project in September 2007, a deal that Bluewater said would give the the wind company the "commitment, strength, reliability and financial backing" needed to build a wind farm off Rehoboth Beach. Those assurances began cracking almost immediately as the global economic crisis took root and spread.