Danish company seeks to build offshore wind farm 15 miles from Atlantic City

A Danish energy firm has submitted a bid to build New Jersey's first offshore wind farm.

wind farm offshore

(Heribert Proepper/AP Photo)

A Danish energy firm has submitted a bid to build New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm.

The proposal by Ørsted to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is in response to the nation’s largest single-state solicitation of offshore wind projects announced in last September.

Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration has set a goal of 3,500 megawatt offshore wind generation by 2030, or enough the power more than 1.5 million homes. The governor seeks to have a 100-percent clean energy state by 2050.

Ørsted, which launched the world’s first offshore wind farm in 1991 and owns and operates the United States’s firm offshore wind farms near Block Island, Rhode Island, proposes its “Ocean Wind” project 15 miles from Atlantic City.

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The firm is seeking to partner with New Jersey-based Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), a gas and energy company serving portions of New Jersey.

“We are pleased to continue supporting Gov. Murphy’s clean energy agenda,” said Ralph Izzo, PSEG’s chairman, president and CEO. “New Jersey is fortunate to have excellent offshore wind resources. If approved Ocean Wind would provide substantial environmental benefits, as well as generate significant economic activity in the state.”

A statement from Ørsted says the Ocean Wind project will create up to 1,000 jobs during the two- to three-year construction cycle and an additional 100 permanent jobs.

In December, the state Board of Public Utilities rejected the Nautilus Offshore Wind LLC application to build a small pilot wind project consisting of three turbines about 2.8 miles east of Atlantic City.

BPU president Joseph Fiordaliso said the project was too costly for taxpayers and the net economic benefits were “too tentative.”

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