Energy From Latest Approved NJ Wind Farm Brought Ashore In Sea Girt

SEA GIRT, NJ — On July 1, the U.S. Department of the Interior gave the go-ahead for the newest wind farm off the Jersey Shore to proceed: Atlantic Shores South, consisting of up to 195 turbines 8.7 miles off Atlantic City.

Atlantic Shores Wind (AtlanticShoresWind.com) is a private subsidiary owned by Shell Oil and EDF Renewables. They currently hold the leasing rights to three areas of the Atlantic Ocean on which they plan to build turbines: Atlantic Shores North, Atlantic Shores South and Atlantic Shores Bight.

• Atlantic Shores North wind farm: Already obtained federal approval and located about 10 miles off Barnegat Light on Long Beach Island.
• Atlantic Shores South wind farm: 8.7 miles off Atlantic City, just given federal approval Monday.
• A third lease area much farther out to sea, located in an area known as the Atlantic Bight.

Atlantic Shores South is the first of the three leasing areas closest to a construction start date. Atlantic Shores South expects to begin laying cable to connect to land in the first quarter of 2025, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Once there are cable connections to the shore, then construction starts on the actual turbines. That is not expected until 2026.

Energy from Atlantic Shores South will be brought onshore in two places: Atlantic City and the town of Sea Girt in Monmouth County, according to this overview of the project made public by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

The turbines in Atlantic Shores North and South will be visible from beaches, as Orsted, the Danish company that bailed out of building a wind farm off Atlantic City, already released these renderings showing its turbines — which would have been 15 miles out — would be visible on clear days.

The federal government says Atlantic Shores South will generate 2,800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power close to one million homes. President Biden said he has a goal of creating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030, an ambition back by Gov. Phil Murphy.

Orsted, British Petroleum already canceled their Jersey Shore wind farms

Atlantic Shores South is the ninth wind farm lease nationwide approved by the Biden administration, which has approved first-ever offshore wind lots in the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico, and is exploring offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine.

However in the past year, two different private companies, Orsted and British Petroleum, said they cannot move forward with plans to build wind farms off New Jersey.

Orsted aborted plans on Oct. 31, 2023: At 3 a.m. on Oct. 31, Orsted announced it was too expensive to build 98 turbines 15 miles off Atlantic City, and they were walking away from the project — despite the fact that the NJ Legislature gave them nearly $500 million in tax breaks.

BP/Equinor terminated deal in January: Then, in January of this year, Equinor and British Petroleum (BP) said they were similarly terminating plans to build Empire Wind, a wind farm 19.5 miles off Long Branch, likely too far to be seen from shore.

It was only in November that Empire Wind received federal government approval. Empire Wind would have taken up 80,000 acres of ocean, stretching from Sandy Hook to Long Branch, but the electric power it was supposed to generate was only going to go to New York state. Equinor retains the leasing rights to those 80,000 acres of ocean water.

British Petroleum/Equinor said there are "changed economic circumstances on an industry-wide scale." They cited "inflation, interest rates and supply chain disruptions" as the reasons for why it was impossible to start building turbines.

It was also in November 2023 that the head of BP's low-carbon energy development said at a conference in London the U.S. offshore wind industry is "fundamentally broken." (Reuters) Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, BP's head of gas and low carbon, cited problems with U.S. offshore wind that included permitting, the time lag between purchase agreements and projects being built, and inflation.

Gov. Phil Murphy praised Monday's approval for this latest wind farm off New Jersey:

Not a single wind turbine has been constructed yet off New Jersey. However, multiple wind energy companies started doing the underwater sonar testing to test for places to lay cable and install the monopoles.

Congressman Chris Smith, who represents southern Monmouth County, criticized the federal approval for Atlantic Shores South.

“In spite of the many major offshore wind failures to date, the Biden administration continues to recklessly jam through its approval of the Atlantic Shores South project, which includes 195 offshore wind turbines with transmission cables making landfall in Sea Girt and disrupting several other Jersey shore towns," said the Republican Congressman.

Another group called Save Long Beach Island, which is currently fighting to prevent the wind farm from being built off Barnegat Light, also denounced the latest approval.

"No other country in the world is considering a wind turbine project of this turbine size and number within nine miles of 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."

Prior: BP Terminates Empire Wind 2 Farm; 2nd Jersey Shore Wind Farm Axed (Jan. 3, 2024)