Offshore wind developers put in new bids for New Jersey’s fourth round of project solicitations this week, while backers of the Atlantic Shores project said they were submitting a revised bid for their previous proposal.
Community Offshore Wind, a partnership between RWE and National Grid, and Attentive Energy Total Energies and Corio Generation, would build turbine arrays in the New York Bight starting around 40 miles east of New Jersey beaches.
Few details were released by developers and the state Board of Public Utilities, which closed the solicitation period July 10.
The third proposal from Atlantic Shores, a joint venture by Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF-RE Offshore Development, LLC, already has key federal approvals. Atlantic Shores is seeking to re-bid half of its 2,800 megawatt proposal but has yet to publicly specify its preferred terms.
In a brief statement, Atlantic Shores backers said “Atlantic Shores Projects 1 and 2 will be the first movers for New Jersey’s offshore wind industry and enable all future offshore wind projects to be delivered later this decade. The distinct advantages of an advanced permitting program, combined with an array of critical near-term supply chain investments and a mature interconnection plan, make Atlantic Shores Projects 1 and 2 the most competitive and deliverable projects proposed in NJ4.”
With its closest planned turbines 8.7 miles to 12.8 miles off Long Beach Island, Atlantic Shores and state regulators face intense opposition from community groups and local Republican office holders. One activist group, Protect Our Coast NJ, said Atlantic Shores aims to win a higher price for power above $86 per megawatt-hour than its original contract.
Beset by escalating costs and supply chain issues, Northeast states and wind developers have been similarly haggling for months to make new deals. In early June New York officials announced new contracts that kept the landmark Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind projects viable off Long Island.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s July 2 approval of a construction and operations plan for the first phase of Atlantic Shores drew impassioned opposition from the group Save Long Beach Island.
“The project approved yesterday by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for the construction of up to 195 wind turbine generators and up to 10 offshore substations off the southern coast of New Jersey is an aberration, no other country in the world is considering a wind turbine project of this turbine size and number within 9 miles off their coastline,” said Bob Stern, president and founder of Save LBI. “The project violates a number of statutes and must be stopped, which is why we are challenging it in court. We have one lawsuit pending and will be pursuing at least seven other avenues of legal intervention.”
Meanwhile BOEM continues preparations for its Aug. 14 Central Atlantic lease sale. A final lease sale notice published July 1 includes Lease Area A-2 off Delaware and Maryland, including 101,443 acres 26 nautical miles (nm) from Delaware Bay.
Lease Area C-1 consists of 176,505 acres, about 35 nm from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Seventeen companies have qualified to participate in the August sale, according to a BOEM summary.
The agency says the sale conditions include lease stipulations and bidding credits “that would reaffirm its commitment to create good-paying jobs and engage with ocean users and other stakeholders:”
- Providing a 12.5% bidding credit to bidders who commit to supporting workforce training programs for the offshore wind industry, developing a domestic supply chain for the offshore wind industry, or a combination of both.
- Providing a 12.5% bidding credit to bidders who establish and contribute to a fisheries compensatory mitigation fund or contribute to an existing fund to mitigate potential negative impacts from offshore wind energy development in the Central Atlantic to commercial and for-hire recreational fisheries.
