By JON HURDLE, CONTRIBUTING WRITER NJ Spotlight
New Jersey has become a national leader of America’s budding offshore wind industry by committing to buying offshore wind power, building the first U.S. port for assembling giant turbines, and recognizing that its workforce needs to have the skills to serve the rapidly growing industry, government and business leaders said Thursday.
At a trade show panel titled “NJ Case Study: Build It and They Will Come,” officials examined whether New Jersey is laying the foundation for a sustainable offshore wind industry that others may emulate.
“What’s happened in New Jersey is, ‘This is what we want, we want some key manufacturing, we want port space, and we want to see it grow,’” said Doug Copeland, development manager for Atlantic Shores, which plans a 1,510-megawatt wind farm off Atlantic City and Long Beach Island.
Copeland praised New Jersey’s approach, which has the state committing to buying 7,500 MW of offshore wind power by 2035, and a combined public and private financial program to stimulate activity.
U.S. identifies possible new lease areas
By JON HURDLE, CONTRIBUTING WRITER NJ Spotlight
The federal government is speeding up its process of identifying and leasing ocean areas for generating offshore wind power because the industry is showing strong demand, and because of the urgency of the climate crisis, the government’s top offshore wind official said Wednesday.
Amanda Lefton, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said officials will auction new wind-energy areas off the central Atlantic coast much more quickly than they did with areas in the New York Bight between New Jersey and New York.
On Wednesday, the bureau called for public comments on six areas from Delaware southward that have the potential for offshore wind leases. After gathering comments from stakeholders including the commercial fishing industry, environmental groups, and the Department of Defense, the agency will identify areas for lease that it says will have the least impact on other ocean users.
The Atlantic lease areas eventually selected will be a fraction of the 3.9 million acres for offshore wind power that the agency announced Wednesday, but they are expected to contribute to the Biden administration’s ambitious goal of generating 30 gigawatts of offshore power by 2030, Lefton said. The new areas also include 1.1 million acres off the coast of Oregon.
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