New Jersey's Scrapped Offshore Wind Project Not Giving Up

Germany-based RWE and New York-based National Grid are making another attempt to advance the Community Offshore Wind project after it was previously excluded by US authorities from New Jersey’s third solicitation round.

On Wednesday, the partnership resubmitted their bid for Community Offshore Wind. If approved in the upcoming solicitation round and constructed as planned, the project would generate 1.3GW of electricity, sufficient to power 500,000 homes.

Scheduled to begin construction in 2027 or 2028, the project will be located 60 km off Barnegat Light on Long Beach and is expected to be operational by 2031. The differences between this bid and the previous one that was rejected remain unclear.

The initial rejection of Community Offshore Wind, along with two other projects, was due to GE Vernova's decision to switch from an 18MW turbine platform to a 15.5/16.5MW turbine, causing significant changes to the proposed projects. The developers and GE Vernova were unable to reach an agreement involving the smaller turbines, leading to the conclusion of the solicitation round without final awards.

The new bid from RWE and National Grid is the final submission for this solicitation round, alongside Attentive Energy's proposal for a project near its preliminarily approved wind farm off Seaside Heights. This project, in partnership with TotalEnergies, Corio Generation, and Rise Light & Power, aims to power 650,000 homes.

Attentive Energy was one of the bidders whose Attentive Energy One project was excluded in the third solicitation round. However, Attentive Energy Two secured an OREC contract earlier this year.

The third project in the solicitation round was submitted by Atlantic Shores, which also has preliminary approval for a project off southern New Jersey. They are seeking to re-bid this project despite the initial rejection.