Biden administration approves large offshore wind project for New Jersey

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Tuesday that it has given a key approval for the Atlantic Shores South offshore wind energy project, which could bring close to 200 wind turbines off the New Jersey coast.

It marks the nation’s ninth utility-scale offshore wind project under President Joe Biden’s administration. It also marks a victory for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy after another major offshore wind project, proposed by Orsted, fell through last fall. However, multiple groups have coalesced to fight Atlantic Shores because of the potential visibility of the turbines from beach communities and potential impact on marine life.

The project still requires some federal approval for the construction and operations, as well as two state-level permits, before turbines can be installed.

Atlantic Shores South contains two separate projects that would have the capacity to produce 2,800 megawatts of renewable energy, the equivalent of providing electricity to one million homes for a year. The wind farms would connect to land through as many as 10 offshore substations and associated transmission lines that would likely make landfall in Atlantic City and Sea Girt.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has approved construction of 195 turbine generators for Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind LLC, a partnership between EDF-RE Offshore Development LLC and Shell New Energies US LLC. The turbine arrays would be placed within a 102,124-acre area. Though the lease area starts about 8.7 miles from the New Jersey shoreline, Atlantic Shores has previously said it would build starting about 12 miles from shore.

The lease area spans an area roughly between Atlantic City and Long Beach Island with turbine assemblies jutting up to 1,048 feet high, nearly as tall as the Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia.

“The Biden-Harris administration is building momentum every day for our clean energy future, and today’s milestone is yet another step toward our ambitious goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore energy by 2030,” U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. “Our clean energy future is now a reality — thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda we are addressing climate change, fostering job growth, and promoting equitable economic opportunities for all communities.”

Murphy thanked Biden on social media for the project’s green light.

And Joris Veldhoven, chief executive officer of Atlantic Shores, called the decision a “milestone” that brings the company “one step closer to delivering New Jersey’s first offshore wind projects.”

The project, which will use union labor, cleared a major hurdle in May when the environmental impact statement for the project was given the go-ahead.

Doug O’Malley, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Environment New Jersey, called Tuesday’s federal decision “a clear win for offshore wind and another step forward to making offshore wind a reality off the Jersey Shore.”

But the anti-offshore wind group Protect Our Coast-NJ said in a statement to the Associated Press that the federal and state governments “are forging ahead like a bull in a China shop, hurting overburdened communities and our incredible ocean with unwanted industrial construction projects.”

“Offshore wind construction and operations disrupt wildlife and ecosystems, and threaten the livelihoods of commercial fishermen and small businesses up and down the East Coast,” the group said in the statement.

State officials have faced opposition by Shore-area groups that came out against offshore wind farms. The groups, which have sometimes aligned with pro-fossil fuel organizations, fear that turbines would be visible from the beach and threaten the Shore’s economy. Some local officials have also opposed the wind farms, including the landing spots for the associated power cables.

However, New Jersey has approved multiple wind farms. Atlantic Shores would likely be first built and producing power by the end of the decade.

Under offshore wind development, the U.S. government approves the lease areas in federal waters and awards bids by energy companies for them. The federal government also releases environmental impact statements.

In New Jersey, the Board of Public Utilities spells out how much power the state wants from the projects and how much ratepayers would be charged for the power and gives approvals for routes used to connect power to the land, as well as other regulatory issues such as connecting to the regional grid as the projects cross into state waters to deliver energy to customers.

In November, offshore wind developer Orsted stunned state officials by abruptly pulling out of two planned projects known as Ocean Wind 1 and 2. They were to deliver about 2.2 gigawatts of renewable energy once completed. Orsted cited a turn in economics, including “high inflation, rising interest rates, and supply chain bottlenecks,” as reasons.

Murphy called Orsted’s decision “outrageous” but vowed to continue building an offshore wind portfolio of 11 gigawatts by 2040. Offshore wind is key to achieving his goal of producing 100% clean energy in the state by 2050. It’s been a long haul, as state officials began planning for commercial-scale offshore wind in the early 2000s.

State officials have earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars for developing offshore wind as an industry, hoping to capture segments of manufacturing and the supply chain through investment in a 200-acre New Jersey Wind Port in Salem County and a separate area built by EEW AOS at the Paulsboro Marine Terminal upriver in Gloucester County to build the three million-pound, 300-foot-long, all-steel foundations for turbines known as monopiles. Officials expect offshore wind to create tens of thousands of jobs.

In January, New Jersey officials approved an additional two utility-scale projects for off the coast but this time much farther out to sea than Atlantic Shores. The BPU approved the projects totaling 3.7 gigawatts, or enough to power up to 1.8 million homes. Chicago-based Invenergy Wind Offshore partnered with New York-based EnergyRe for one of the projects. And Jersey City-based Attentive Energy was the other project approved. Both still need federal approval.

Atlantic Shores South is the wind farm closest to being built after Orsted pulled out.

According to documents filed with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Atlantic Shores expects to begin laying cable for onshore connections in the first quarter of 2025. Installation of the wind turbine generators could begin in 2026.