343,833 acres offshore New Jersey will be offered for commercial wind energy development in a competitive lease sale on 9 November 2015.
If fully developed, the New Jersey Wind Energy Area could support at least 3,400 megawatts of commercial wind generation, enough to power an estimated 1.2 million homes, according to the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
BOEM has awarded nine commercial offshore wind leases, including seven through the competitive lease sale process (two in an area offshore Rhode Island-Massachusetts, another two offshore Massachusetts, two offshore Maryland and one offshore Virginia). These lease sales have generated about $14.5 million in winning bids for more than 700,000 acres in federal waters.
The auction comes on the heels of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s upholding of the state’s Board of Public Utilities’ rejection of Fishermen’s proposed 25-megawatt offshore wind farm in shallow coastal waters three miles off Atlantic City. The project has been rejected twice by the state Board of Public Utilities, with the most recent court decision coming in October 2015. A bipartisan bill to promote wind turbines to produce power was approved five years ago, but no projects have been approved by the state agency, largely due to financial concerns.
The November / December 2015 issue of ECO includes a full-length feature on lessons learned from offshore wind projects in the U.S. so far.
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