New Jersey Selects Orsted, Shell-EDF Partnership to Develop 2.7 Gigawatts of Offshore Wind Projects

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has awarded two offshore wind projects totaling nearly 2.7 gigawatts to Denmark-based Orsted A/S’ Ocean Wind II and Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind LLC, a joint venture of EDF Renewables North America and Shell New Energies US LLC. The selection, which represents the largest combined offshore wind award in the U.S., will bring the state closer to meeting its goal of 7.5 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035. The first round of solicitation resulted in the selection of Orsted in June 2019 to develop a 1.1-gigawatt wind project off the coast of Atlantic City.

The selected projects – 1,510-megawatt Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind and 1,148-megawatt to Ocean Wind II – are expected to generate $3.5 billion in economic benefits and supply 1.15 million homes with clean energy. These projects also address environmental impacts as developers are required by the solicitation to contribute $10,000 per megawatt to fund wildlife and fishery monitoring and related research initiatives.

Federal regulators have initiated an environmental review process for the 1.1-gigawatt project, which is expected to become the third U.S. utility-scale project to undergo the permitting process, following Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts and South Fork in Rhode Island.

Economic benefits from the selected projects include the creation of 7,000 full or part-time jobs. The projects are expected to bring manufacturing jobs to the state, as each project committed to building assembly facilities for nacelles, the turbine component that converts wind’s kinetic energy to mechanical energy. The board and New Jersey’s Governor Phil Murphy seek to leverage these economic benefits to frame the state as a national wind energy hub. In April, PJM Interconnection LLC opened a solicitation on behalf of the board for potential offshore wind transmission solutions. New Jersey is the first state to align offshore wind policy with the regional grid operator’s transmission planning.

The state’s proposed procurement schedule, unveiled in March 2020, calls for four more rounds in 2022, 2024, 2026 and 2028 to achieve the 2035 goal. The board will vote in 2022 to launch the third round of solicitation for at least 1.2 gigawatts.