New Jersey on Tuesday opened the door to more offshore wind development — although no wind turbines currently spin off the state’s coast.
The state Board of Public Utilities approved the opening of a fourth solicitation window — a time in which developers can apply to build wind projects here.
That window will last from now until July 10.
The latest BPU approval came months after the world’s largest wind developer, Ørsted, suddenly pulled out of plans to build the state’s first wind farm 15 miles from the coasts of Cape May and Atlantic Counties.
“I think that advancing this solicitation really demonstrates that we are committed to seeing the economic development that offshore wind is bringing to New Jersey and will continue to bring, as well as the clean energy that is so important for the residents of the state,” Christine Guhl-Sadovy, BPU president, said Tuesday morning.
The approval was specifically for additional Offshore Wind Renewable Energy Certificates, or ORECs, which represent the environmental benefits tied to megawatt-hours of electricity generated from offshore wind resources and consumed by ratepayers.
The decision came while a string of lawsuits have sought — so far unsuccessfully — to trip up a series of current and previously-approved wind projects and as already-approved developments are facing their own financial and supply-chain challenges.
Last year’s project cancelations dealt a massive blow to Gov. Phil Murphy’s climate change plans and flung the success of two wind ports into their own kind of uncertainty.
But Murphy, a Democrat, in the fall accelerated the timeline to welcomewind farm proposals to New Jersey, saying they were vital for the health of the state and will provide thousands of union jobs. The governor also said new projects were dedicating additional money to ensure the state’s future in the nascent energy space.
On Tuesday, Murphy said the latest solicitation “will help guarantee that New Jersey residents have access to clean, affordable energy produced right here at home and powered by our very own union workforce.”
New Jersey regulators are expected to decide — between October and December of this year — which new project bids to award contracts to, a BPU spokesperson said.
Originally, awards for projects in this fourth application window were expected between April and June 2025.
Additional state and federal permits, as well as environmental approvals, would be needed for wind farms in the fourth solicitation to materialize.
On Monday afternoon, an Ørsted spokesperson said the Danish company still held the leases for the areas that Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 were once set to be built.
Many lease areas are carved out for wind turbines off the Jersey Shore down south, but some are up north as well and New York has its own wind prospects.
Ørsted officials would not comment further on future plans for its lease areas, but the company has the option to sell them to another developer.
“We do not comment on our bid strategy or open solicitations,” an Ørsted spokesperson said of the fourth solicitation opening Tuesday, “but applaud New Jersey for seeking to provide more offshore wind energy to the region.”
The company and the state BPU did not have updates on a $300 million forfeiture — money that Murphy said he would fight for as part of a previously agreed-on guarantee to build Ocean Wind 1.
Wind construction in the pipeline — but some scrapped
Three other offshore wind projects are currently in the pipeline.
In January, as part of a different solicitation period, New Jersey’s utility board awarded contracts for:
- Leading Light Wind’s (from Invenergy and energyRE) 2,400 megawatt project to be located approximately 40 miles from shore and expected to be operational in two 1,200 megawatt phases in 2031 and 2032
- Attentive Energy’s (a subsidiary of TotalEnergies) 1,342 megawatt project to be located approximately 47 miles from shore and expected to be operational in 2031
Leading Light Wind’s project is slated to include about 100 offshore wind turbines.
More details on Attentive Energy’s project have not been released and were not immediately provided by the company Tuesday.
Nearby in New York, where three more offshore projects were recently scrapped, officials have sought to make headway on their own future wind bids.
Progress on wind construction in both states is not just critical to our region but President Joe Biden’s countrywide clean energy ambitions.
In New Jersey, there’s also the already-approved Atlantic Shores project — which is one of two from the developer and set to include at least 200 offshore wind turbines.
That first Atlantic Shores project (a 50/50 partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF Renewables North America) could place wind turbines as close as 8.7 miles from the shore and is expected to power about 700,000 homes by 2028, according to the company.
In all, seven offshore wind solicitations, which began in 2018 and stretch to 2038, lay out how New Jersey seeks to reach 11,000 megawatts of usage by 2040.
Kira Lawrence, a senior scientist for the state, said Tuesday that one of the goals for the fourth solicitation window is to secure between roughly 1.2 gigawatts and 4 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity.
New Jersey, as part of its plans to expand clean energy and fend off climate change through wind, electric-powered transportation and solar panels, hopes to reach 100% clean energy by 2035.
However, for wind the unproven link between survey pre-construction work and whale strandings, concerns shared by the local fishing industry and worries wind farms could mar Jersey Shore views have especially proliferated in the past two years.
Earlier this month, a lawsuit — filed by eight towns against Atlantic Shores that sought further review of the offshore wind project — was dismissed by a judge after it was ruled the shore communities had no standing to bring action, Brigantine Mayor Vince Sera said.
“Personally, I have a very hard time understanding how homeowners and municipalities have no standing in this case when these ocean wind projects will have major negative impacts to the ocean environment, our local economies, the value of people’s homes, and will dramatically increase the cost of electricity paid by everyone in New Jersey,” Sera said in a statement following the decision.
Amid lawsuits and rallies surrounding several projects, there have also been political and financial ties reported between the fossil fuel industry and misinformation surrounding the future of offshore wind in the U.S. and New Jersey.
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Steven Rodas may be reached at srodas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X at @stevenrodasnj.
