On September 9, 2020, the Board of Public Utilities approved the opening of the application window for NJ's second solicitation for offshore wind power, seeking between 1,200 MW and 2,400 MW.
On June 30, 2021, the BPU announced the approval of the Nation's largest combined offshore wind award to both Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind (a joint venture between EDF Renewables North America and Shell New Energies US LLC) and Orsted's Ocean Wind II - totaling 2,658 MW of offshore wind capacity. Combined, Atlantic Shores 1,510 MW project and Ocean Wind II's 1,148 MW project will provide the State with enough electricity to power more than 1.15 million homes with clean, renewable energy.
In addition to strong environmental and fisheries protection plans, each project awarded has made a commitment to invest in NJ's growing offshore wind industry by building new manufacturing facilities at the New Jersey Wind Port and utilizing the foundation manufacturing facility at the Port of Paulsboro which will help create tens of thousands of jobs and inject billions of dollars in economic benefits to the State. Also, as required by the solicitation, each developer will be contributing $10,000 per MW of offshore wind capacity awarded to fund research initiatives and wildlife and fishery monitoring in the region - for a total of $26 million.
The table below shows the first year OREC price for each project, as well as the Levelized Net OREC Cost (LNOC) for the 20 year lifetime, and the average estimated monthly impact to ratepayers.
The offshore wind solicitation schedule has been updated following the second solicitation awards. This revised schedule can be seen below, or found here: