Today’s New Jersey energy and environment news
By Tim Ferry, US Offshore Wind Editor, Recharge Updated 3 July 2024
President Joe Biden’s administration issued its ninth record of decision (ROD) for a US offshore wind project with the greenlighting of Shell-EDF’s mammoth 3GW Atlantic Shores array facing New Jersey – a project rival Donald Trump has vowed to stop if he is elected.
Trump took aim at Atlantic Shores during a rally in the state in May, when he referenced the specific number of turbines planned for the project and said: “You won’t have to worry about governor [Phil] Murphy’s 157 windmills” before promising to end offshore wind “on day one” of a new term.
The former and would-be future president has been openly hostile to wind power during his latest campaign, issuing a series of threats to the sector in public and private.
The ROD covers two projects in the same lease 8.7 miles (14 km) off New Jersey collectively referred to as the Atlantic Shores South, but only the 1.5GW Atlantic Shores 1 project has an offtake contract with the state.
The ROD concludes the environmental review by offshore energy regulator Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and its partner agencies and sets the project up for approval of its construction and operations plan (COP), which would then allow the developers to begin at-sea installation.
“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 30GW of offshore energy by 2030,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
The news follows on the heels of BOEM’s COP approval Monday for Avangrid’s 2.6GW New England array currently bid into the tri-state procurement round of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
With today’s approval, BOEM under the Department of Interior (DOI) has approved more than 13GW of offshore wind capacity, enough to power nearly five million homes.
Related Offshore Wind News:
A big wind farm off the Jersey coast gets a key federal go-ahead
Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind South Record of Decision (NJDEP)
New England Wind 1 Gets Green Light from Federal Government
