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New Jersey Plans to Restart Offshore Wind in 2024 After “Bump in the Road”

December 4, 2023 — The Governor of New Jersey is looking to restart his state’s offshore wind programs reiterating that they remain committed to offshore wind as a key component of the state’s renewable energy program. The state said the governor’s action reaffirmed its overall commitment to achieving 100 percent clean energy by 2035 and developing the economy by building the industry and its supporting supply chain.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) was directed by the governor to accelerate the timeline of the state’s fourth offshore wind solicitation. Originally scheduled for the summer of 2024, Governor Phil Murphy on November 29 directed NJBPU to launch the next offshore wind solicitation in early 2024. However, the state does not expect to announce the awards in early 2025 for projects that will not be operational till 2032.

“I have directed the BPU to take this action in recognition of the strong future of New Jersey’s offshore wind industry,” said Governor Murphy. “New Jersey can – and will – continue to remain a burgeoning offshore wind development hub that attracts new projects and their accompanying economic and environmental benefits for generations to come.”

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

Phil Murphy’s New Jersey Wind Flop

November 6, 2023 — Phil Murphy huffed and he puffed, and a giant wind boondoggle blew the New Jersey Governor down. That’s the story of another failed green-energy project, as the follies keep being exposed.

The renewable energy firm Ørsted last week backed out of two megaprojects along the Jersey shore that it started planning in 2019. With his eye on support from the climate lobby for a White House run, Mr. Murphy courted the developments, which were meant to provide electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes. The company says cost overruns have made them impossible, and it wrote off $4 billion for the first nine months of this year.

Mr. Murphy fumed in public, saying the cancellation casts doubt on Ørsted’s “credibility and competence.” The Danish firm blames its withdrawal on rising interest rates and component costs, but it has said little about what made the New Jersey project uniquely impractical. At least for now, the company is moving ahead with wind farms in New England and Maryland.

Read the full article at the Wall Street Journal

NEW JERSEY: Murphy faces blowback over wind power ‘giveaway’ to Danish firm

July 13, 2023 — New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is being criticized for doling out generous tax breaks to a Danish-based energy firm seeking to develop offshore wind.

Murphy signed an agreement last Thursday with Ørsted Wind, a Danish firm, granting the company a tax break on one of two energy projects it is developing off the New Jersey coast.

Under the plan, Orsted will be allowed to keep federal tax credits that were supposed to be passed to New Jersey utility ratepayers to offset the potential for higher electricity rates.

Democrats who approved the legislation last week argued the tax relief was needed to help the company deal with inflation and the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full article at The Center Square

NEW JERSEY: Murphy signs law to save wind farm, touting New Jersey as ‘foundation’ of U.S. wind industry

July 9, 2023 — Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill Thursday to save New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm from financial uncertainty.

The governor held an event in Paulsboro and signed the offshore wind legislation along with two other economic development bills, including one with tax credits for the film industry, to emphasize a narrative about the “21st Century economy” he’s had since taking office.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity right now to bring tens of thousands of overwhelmingly union jobs and billions of dollars of investment to our state with offshore wind,” Murphy said. The marine terminal in Paulsboro and the wind port in Salem County, Murphy added, are “literally building the foundation of our nation’s entire wind industry.”

The offshore wind law will allow energy company Ørsted to keep hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tax incentives that the company otherwise would be required to pass along to state utility customers. Without the deal, the company and Murphy administration officials said the wind farm would not be built. In exchange for the relief, Ørsted agreed — and now by law will be obligated — to spend $200 million at the Paulsboro port where Murphy signed the bill.

The bill cleared the Senate and Assembly on the same day as the state budget last week.

Read the full article at Politico

Orsted will use NJ Wind Port to build offshore wind farm

April 28, 2022 — Orsted, the Danish wind power developer, signed an agreement Thursday with New Jersey officials to use a state-financed manufacturing port to build the components of the state’s first offshore wind farm.

Gov. Phil Murphy announced the agreement during an international wind energy conference in Atlantic City, from whose coast the project’s turbines should be visible on the distant horizon.

Orsted, which is partnering with Newark-based PSEG to build the project, will lease the New Jersey Wind Port in Salem County for two years starting in April 2024. Murphy did not reveal how much the developers will pay for the lease. The parties signed the letter of intent Thursday, but binding agreements are to be submitted to the New Jersey Economic Development Authority by June.

The pact marks the first return on the state’s investment of up to $500 million in the wind port, designed to help the state attract companies interested in building wind power projects here as it seeks to become the East Coast hub of the offshore wind industry.

Read the full story at AP News

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind opponents host energy contrarian Michael Shellenberger

July 27, 2021 — The Biden administration and coastal state governments are banking intensely on offshore wind energy as the long-term solution to reducing carbon emissions and solving the problems of siting new power facilities on shore.

Michael Shellenberger says it’s time to go back to the land – and nuclear power.

“If you really care about climate change, we’d be doing more nuclear power,” said Shellenberger, a longtime environmental writer and founder of the nonprofit think tank Environment Progress, at a July 15 speaking event hosted by opponents of offshore wind with the Save Our Shoreline group in Ocean City, N.J.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy last week signed legislation to quash Ocean City officials’ intent to block power cables coming ashore from Ørsted’s planned Ocean Wind project. Murphy and powerful Democratic leaders in the state Legislature who advocate developing that and other turbine arrays say they won’t allow local governments to derail the state’s renewable energy goals.

Shellenberger said New Jersey and other states already have options at hand to reduce carbon emissions – by maintaining and redeveloping power plants from the heyday of the U.S. nuclear industry.

“Wind uses significantly more” concrete and steel than building natural gas and nuclear power stations, Shellenberger told a receptive audience of about 150 in the Ocean City Music Pier.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

They’re not blown away by New Jersey’s offshore wind power plans

July 19, 2021 — New Jersey is moving aggressively to become the leader in the fast-growing offshore wind energy industry on the East Coast, but not everyone is blown away by those ambitious plans.

While the state’s Democratic political leadership is solidly behind a rapid build-out of wind energy projects off the coast — it has set a goal of generating 100% of its energy from clean sources by 2050 — opposition is growing among citizens groups, and even some green energy-loving environmentalists are wary of the pace and scope of the plans.

The most commonly voiced objections include the unknown effect hundreds or even thousands of wind turbines might have on the ocean, fears of higher electric bills as costs are passed on to consumers, and a sense that the entire undertaking is being rushed through with little understanding of what the consequences might be.

Recreational and commercial fishermen have long felt left out of the planning for offshore wind, much of which will take place in prime fishing grounds.

Similar concerns have been voiced by offshore wind opponents in Massachusetts, France and South Korea, among other places.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post

Latest offshore wind award to triple megawatts off South Jersey

July 1, 2021 — The state awarded the right to build another 2,600 megawatts of offshore wind electric generation to two companies Wednesday, a milestone Gov. Phil Murphy celebrated during his regular COVID-19 media briefing.

“We just approved the largest combined offshore wind award in history,” Murphy said of the action by the state Board of Public Utilities on Wednesday morning. “It will triple our total capacity and strengthen our commitment to securing good union jobs and make New Jersey a national leader in the offshore wind industry.”

BPU President Joe Fiordaliso, who attended Murphy’s briefing, said Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind will build a 1,510 megawatt farm off the coast between Long Beach Island and Atlantic City, and Ørsted’s Ocean Wind will build 1,148 megawatts of the new solicitation in its leasing area in federal waters southeast of Atlantic City.

“Combined, once these turbines are in the water, they will supply power to 1.1 million homes in New Jersey,” Fiordaliso said.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City

New Jersey awards 2,658 megawatts in biggest U.S. pact

July 1, 2021 — The EDF/Shell Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind venture and a second phase of Ørsted’s Ocean Wind project were awarded a combined 2,658 megawatts of capacity by New Jersey utilities regulators Wednesday, in what state officials call the largest U.S. combined award to date.

The vote by the state Board of Public Utilities raises the state’s total planned capacity to over 3,700 MW, nearly half of a goal of 7,500 MW by 2035 set by Gov. Phil Murphy.

The board allocated 1,510 MW to Atlantic Shores and 1,148 MW to Ocean Wind II for their neighboring federal leases off Long Beach Island and Atlantic City, N.J.

Both developers will build new manufacturing facilities at the New Jersey Wind Port planned at the mouth of the Delaware River in Salem County, and use a foundation manufacturing facility upriver at the Port of Paulsboro, state officials said. Those projects are projected to be commissioned in 2027 through 2029.

“Combined, the two projects are estimated to create 7,000 full- and or part-time jobs across the development, construction and operational phases of the projects. This yields approximately 56,000 full time equivalent job-years, as some jobs will be shorter term and others will last for many years,” according to a BPU statement. “They will also generate $3.5 billion in economic benefits and power 1.15 million homes with clean energy.”

The BPU agreement requires the developers to contribute $10,000 per megawatt of capacity – some $26 million in all – to fund environmental research initiatives and wildlife and fishery monitoring in the region, with the money administered by the BPU and state Department of Environmental Protection.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

Some New Jersey residents fighting the state’s wind farm plan

June 16, 2021 — New Jersey is moving forward with plans to build an enormous wind farm 20 miles off the coast, but not everybody is thrilled.

Proponents, including Gov. Phil Murphy, insist the Ocean Wind project, which calls for constructing about a hundred giant wind turbines out in the ocean over the next five years, and hundreds more in the future, will boost the state economy, create thousands of new jobs and provide enough green energy to run hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.

Tricia Conte, the founder of Save Our Shoreline, is dead set against the wind farm.

“I was initially concerned about the view,” she said. “And then the more research I did I realized there were greater issues than the view.”

She said, “In other areas where there has been green energy installed, California, Germany and Denmark, there was significant increases in the cost of electricity.”

Read the full story at NJ 101.5