The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) has announced that it is advancing the US State’s fifth offshore wind solicitation more than a year ahead of its original timeline. The NJBPU is thus moving up the next solicitation for additional offshore wind projects from the third quarter of 2026 to the second quarter of 2025.
As of May 2024, New Jersey held three auctions for offshore wind projects. In 2019, the State awarded the largest single offshore wind project in the US to Ørsted’s 1.1 GW Ocean Wind (which the developer later cancelled). In 2021, the second solicitation resulted in the largest combined award of 2.6 GW of capacity to EDF and Shell’s Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind and Ørsted’s Ocean Wind 2 projects. In January 2024, the NJBPU awarded the 1,342 MW Attentive Energy Two project and the 2,400 MW Leading Light Wind project. Finally, New Jersey announced in late April 2024 the opening of the state’s fourth solicitation for 1.2 GW to 4 GW of offshore wind capacity.
New Jersey aims to reach 11 GW of offshore wind by 2040 and to have a 100% clean energy economy by 2035. At the federal level, the United States targets 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030 and 15 GW of floating wind capacity by 2035. At the end of 2023, the US only had 42 MW of offshore wind capacity. Over 10 GW of onshore and offshore wind power capacity is under construction and over 60 GW is under development (of which over 36 GW offshore).
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