$47 million in U.S. funds will help create wind farm off Atlantic City

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey traveled to Atlantic City this week with some federal funding in tow.

 

 

He’s brought home a grant to harvest wind energy off the Jersey Shore.

The Fishermen’s Energy Atlantic City Wind Farm will receive up to $47 million in grants over the next four years to invest in the offshore wind power that Menendez says is the key to the country’s energy future.

“It gives us a tremendous opportunity to be a leader in offshore wind at a time that Atlantic City is facing the challenge of losing jobs,” he said. “It has tremendous opportunities for construction jobs, maintenance jobs and other related employment that would be great for the region.”

The funding will allow Fishermen’s Energy principals to finalize construction and implementation of a demonstration windfarm of five turbines 2.8 mile s off of Atlantic City, potentially the first offshore windfarm in the U.S.

The money comes from the federal government at a time when U.S. energy strategy is embracing just about any kind of generation capacity, Menendez said.

“I think that having an ‘all of the above’ energy policy gives us the kind of independence that we want, but clean energy is really the energy of the future,” he said. “This is part of it [and] it’s all natural. There’s a suggestion that the area we could do off the Jersey Shore could provide electricity for a million homes.”

The project could provide up to 250 jobs and $100 million in economic activity for the Garden State. Construction is expected to begin next year.