Empire Wind Farm 19 Miles Off Long Branch Is '40 Percent Complete,' Company Says

LONG BRANCH, NJ — Empire Wind, located 19 miles off Long Branch, is currently installing 54 monopiles into the ocean floor, a company spokesman said Aug. 1.

No other wind farm off New Jersey has made as much progress as Empire Wind. In fact, Empire Wind is the only Jersey Shore wind farm to even start construction.

All other wind farms proposed off the Jersey Shore have either collapsed, or been put on hold as their companies scramble to find financing.

"South of Martha's Vineyard, this is the wind farm that's made the most progress so far," said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action. (Zipf is part of a lawsuit that's trying to get Empire Wind shut down before it progresses any further.)

A monopile is a large steel base that goes into the ocean floor and supports the wind turbine. It is the foundation of the turbine. The next step is another steel pole — much taller, at 900 feet — will be installed into that. The turbine is then installed on top. Each Empire Wind turbine will be 951 feet tall. For comparison, the Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall.

At 19 miles out to sea, the turbines from Empire Wind will not be visible from Jersey Shore beaches. Empire Wind is closer to New York state; it's about 13 miles south of Long Beach on Long Island.

Empire Wind is owned by Norwegian renewable energy company Equinor, formerly known as Statoil, of which the Kingdom of Norway is a majority shareholder.

As of Aug. 1, construction on the wind farm is 40 percent complete, said Equinor spokesman David Schoetz. Equinor also started laying export cable under the sea, connecting the wind farm with the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, he said. The South Brooklyn Marine Terminal is where energy produced by Empire Wind will be brought ashore, and where Empire will plug into the New York City power grid.

None of the electricity that will be generated from Empire Wind will go to New Jersey residents. Equinor has a contract with New York state to provide electricity to New York City and Long Island.

"Empire Wind is approximately 40 percent complete and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal is over 60 percent complete," said Schoetz. "First power is expected by the end of 2026, with a 2027 commercial operations date."

Empire Wind using pile driving to install the monopiles

Equinor is not currently using sonar; they do pile driving to install the monopiles, said Schoetz.

Equinor, like all wind energy companies, did use sonar in the beginning to map the ocean floor and determine best locations to install the monopiles.

"Sonar was used during pre-construction survey work," said Schoetz.

But Zipf says both sonar and pile driving could be harmful to whales and dolphins.

"They used sonar in the beginning to figure out where they wanted to put the monopile bases. Now they are using pile driving, which is a lot worse than sonar," she said this week. "They use a massive ship — the second largest crane barge in the world — to pile drive these massive bases more than 100 feet deep into the sea floor. The pounding and reverberations are well known to be extremely harmful to marine life, including whales."

She cited this NOAA report, among others, that says pile driving can be harmful to whales and ocean animals.

Schoetz says Equinor employs whale watchers — they call them "Protected Species Observers" — to stand on their ships and spot for whales and other marine life. All pile driving immediately halts when a whale is spotted, he said.

"To date, construction stopped once based on an animal spotting," said Schoetz. "Construction resumed once the animal cleared the area."

Construction on Empire Wind was halted earlier this year

On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump put an immediate halt to all new wind farm development in the United States. However, his executive order did not apply to projects that already received federal permits and had started construction, such as Empire Wind.

In April, U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a stop-work order to Empire Wind, saying their permitting had been rushed, among other concerns he has with the project.

Equinor complied, but the company said halting the work put the $5-billion project at risk of total collapse. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul argued on behalf of Equinor, and in May she announced here the stop-work order was lifted, and Empire Wind could proceed with installation work.

"There are a lot of theories out there about what got that deal made," said Robin Shaffer of Protect Our Coast, which is the lead plaintiff in the federal lawsuit against Equinor. "It may have had something to do with the Big Beautiful Bill. I know Norway was lobbying the Trump administration hard, as well. There's a lot of politicking that goes on behind the scenes that we don't know about."

Zipf's and Shaffer's lawsuit was filed in June; it's called Protect Our Coast NJ, ACT for Whales and Clean Ocean Action vs. the United States of America, Equinor and the Kingdom of Norway. Interior Secretary Burgum and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, among others, were also sued.

Other environmental groups and some Jersey Shore commercial fishermen joined as plaintiffs. Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx, which sources much of its fish from the Jersey Shore, even joined the lawsuit against Equinor.

The lawsuit is progressing, said Shaffer. He said the U.S. Dept. of the Interior has until Sept. 13 to review all litigation against any wind farm in America, and he anticipates a decision on Empire Wind then.

"We anticipate the government will take a good hard look again at why this project shouldn't be built," he said Aug. 8.

Both Zipf and Shaffer want Trump to more aggressively stop Empire Wind. They also don't think ocean water off New Jersey should be leased to a foreign country.

Equinor did not respond to their comments.

"It never should have been granted federal permits," said Zipf. "Equinor gives the appearance of being a company, but it's really the Kingdom of Norway that owns this project. The laws of our country do not allow leasing our land to a foreign country."

"The Kingdom of Norway is building this in U.S. waters and we're suffering the consequences," said Shaffer. "Trump has been quite vocal that he doesn't want wind turbines anywhere, especially in the ocean. So for Empire Wind to essentially be built right in his backyard, right off New York City, makes no sense."

"No part of this feels like America First."

Other wind farms off the Jersey Shore have stalled or stopped entirely

Ten days after Trump's ban on all future wind farm development in America, Shell oil company announced in late January they were pulling out of the Atlantic Shores wind farm, which is supposed to be 197 wind turbines 8.7 miles off Barnegat Light on Long Beach Island.

An Atlantic Shores spokesperson said the wind farm still wants to move forward. But Shell's decision withdrew an investment of nearly $1 billion, Bloomberg reported.

In 2023, Danish renewable energy company Orsted killed Ocean Wind, which was supposed to be built off Atlantic City. And in 2024, British Petroleum said it was backing out of Empire Wind 2, which would have been a second wind farm built next to Empire Wind 1.

As energy prices continue to skyrocket, Empire Wind will deliver enough power for 500,000 New York homes, helping to meet the state’s rising energy demands, said Schoetz.

Last Wednesday, July 30, Zipf ventured out by boat and toured the Empire Wind construction site, 19 miles out at sea.

"It's surreal. The scale is hard to comprehend. People in New Jersey don't know this is happening because they can't see it from shore," she said.

"I don't know what will happen to Empire Wind. It's economically iffy. The technology to bring the wind ashore is iffy. We don't know if (the turbines) can survive Category-3 hurricanes. We don't know a lot. I'm not sure how it's going to end."

Prior:

When the lawsuit was filed against Empire Wind in June: NJ Commercial Fisheries Sue Trump For Allowing Empire Wind Farm Off Long Branch To Proceed (June 2025)

Trump Puts Pause On Wind Farms, Wants Oil/Gas Drilling Off NJ Instead (Jan. 2025)

NJ Cancels Latest Round Of Offshore Wind Farm Leasing, Citing Trump (Feb. 2025)

Trump Admin. Lifts Stop-Work Order, Allows Empire Wind Farm Off NJ To Proceed (May 2025)