At the groundbreaking, Murphy says the site will make NJ the ‘epicenter’ of the offshore wind industry
By JON HURDLE, CONTRIBUTING WRITER NJ Spotlight
New Jersey’s budding offshore wind industry got an official endorsement Thursday with a ceremonial groundbreaking for a new state-financed port that will serve as the host of turbines due for construction in the next few years.
Gov. Phil Murphy joined U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, senior state officials, federal and state lawmakers, trade unionists, and environmental activists to launch the New Jersey Wind Port where operators will marshal and assemble the components that make up the giant turbines.
The facility, on 200 acres adjoining the Salem County nuclear-power complex, will be the nation’s first purpose-built onshore site for servicing an industry that’s key to achieving the Murphy administration’s clean-energy goals, and contributing to a global target of cutting carbon emissions.
Just one week after the remnants of Hurricane Ida ravaged New Jersey with tornadoes and record rainfall, killing more than two dozen people, Murphy said the wind port showed that the state is serious about curbing climate change.
“That sort of reality may be part of our today, but we must do all that we can to prove our unwillingness to deny climate change,” Murphy said. He said the state should attack climate change “head-on” so that future generations can enjoy a habitable world.
‘Epicenter’ of offshore wind industry?
Murphy, a first-term Democrat running for reelection, said the port will establish New Jersey as the “epicenter” of America’s offshore wind industry and the focus of its supply chain.
“This location will provide essential staging, assembly, and manufacturing for the offshore wind industry, not just in Jersey, but up and down the East Coast,” Murphy said, next to a ceremonial sand pile lined with shovels and hard hats.
The project finally refutes a long-held argument that there’s a trade-off between job creation and environmental protection, considering projections that the port will create 1,500 permanent jobs, and hundreds more in the construction phase, Murphy said.
“What we are doing here today is not only creating jobs — overwhelmingly good union jobs — it is going to be perhaps our greatest stand against climate change,” Murphy said. “New Jersey is going to change the narrative: Fighting climate change and creating good jobs do go hand in hand.”
The state’s first commercial-scale wind farm, named Ocean Wind, is sited about 15 miles off Atlantic City, and is due to start delivering power by late 2024. The project will be managed by Denmark’s Ørsted, one of the world’s biggest offshore wind developers, and is 25% owned by the PSEG energy company. It will generate 1,100 megawatts or enough to power around 500,000 homes.
Next up, another wind farm
It is due to be followed by Atlantic Shores, starting in 2024, a wind farm between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light. The project would generate 1,510 MW, or enough to power some 700,000 homes.
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