After months of review, the state is expected to announce today how it plans to bring electricity from yet-to-be-built offshore wind farms to homes and businesses in New Jersey over the coming decade.
By TOM JOHNSON, NJ Spotlight News
The highly anticipated decision by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is crucial to the Murphy administration’s plan to rely on power from offshore wind turbines to smoothly transition the state away from its dependence on fossil fuels, which now provide more than 40% of electricity to customers.
Thirteen developers have submitted more than 80 proposals to the state agency as well as to the PJM Interconnection, the operator of the nation’s largest power grid. The projects vary in scale, scope and ambition.
Some involve upgrading existing onshore transmission lines at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Others envision building offshore substations and burying new transmission lines up to 50 miles or more off the Jersey coast in the New York Bight. The latter project is proposed by Ørsted/PSEG.
The 80 projects include those from Atlantic City Electric, Jersey Central Power & Light and PSEG, the owner of the state’s largest electric utility; offshore wind developers, and transmission companies. Depending on what and how many projects are selected by the BPU, costs are expected to run into billions of dollars, a cost ultimately to be paid by utility customers in New Jersey.
One unlikely outcome
The state also has the option to choose none of the projects, although most participants view that as unlikely.
“This is a big deal,’’ said Paul Patterson, an energy analyst at Glenrock Associates. “It is one of the most critical parts of offshore wind development. This is an issue not just for New Jersey, but for other parts of the country from Virginia to Maine.”
“This could set a road map for other states on how offshore wind can work,’’ said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey and a longtime offshore wind advocate. “This has been a very, very competitive process.”
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