New Jersey has Highest U.S. Offshore Wind Potential

The state of New Jersey has the highest potential for offshore wind power production in the U.S., according to Turning to the Wind, a new Environment New Jersey Research and Policy Center report. 

The report also shows that carbon pollution equal to 1.1 million cars could be eliminated by 2020 with a rapid expansion in wind power off Jersey.

Using data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the report shows that as much as 1,700 MW of wind power could be built in the state in the next five years with the right policies in place, enough to power more than half a million homes and eliminate more than five million metric tons of carbon pollution. 

Both the state legislature and the governor approved a plan for the state’s first major offshore wind farm in 2010. The Fishermen’s Energy’s long-delayed project would see the construction of a 25-megawatt wind farm three miles off Atlantic City which could generate more than 500 jobs to the area. The project has already received a $47 million Department of Energy grant and could be constructed in only two years, says the environmental organization.

In November, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) successfully auctioned off the two wind energy areas off the Jersey Shore totaling 344,000 acres. The offshore wind leases were awarded to Res Americas and U.S. Wind Inc. and the final total sale price was nearly $2 million. The wind energy area begins about seven nautical miles off the coast from Atlantic City and extends 21 nautical miles offshore.

The omnibus budget bill which passed Congress and signed into law by President Obama just before Christmas 2015 included an unexpected boon for the clean energy industry, with the five-year extension of a key clean energy tax credit for the wind industry, the production tax credit (PTC), as well as the investment tax credit (ITC). The PTC expired at the end of 2014, and now will be extended through the end of 2020. The ITC was slated to expire at the end of 2016, and will now be extended through 2022.

The construction of America’s first offshore wind facility, the Deepwater Wind, 30 MW Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island, began in July 2015. All five steel jacket foundations were installed at the Block Island Wind Farm site late last year. Submarine cable installation is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2016, with erection of the five offshore wind turbines set for the summer of 2016. The project is scheduled to be in-service and generating power in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Several offshore wind projects in Atlantic states have reached advanced development stages and are scheduled to begin commercial operations by 2020. Energy generated by these projects could offset over 9.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2020 (equivalent to the annual emissions of nearly two million passenger vehicles.)

The report is available here.