ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey — Up to two additional offshore wind projects were proposed off the New Jersey coast on Wednesday, and developers of a third project, which has already received preliminary approval, attempted to re-tender the terms.
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities received three bids in the fourth round of offshore wind farm tenders before a deadline Wednesday.
At least one was said to be a new project, and one was a request by Atlantic Shores to rebid half of the previously announced two-phase project, which has already received preliminary state and federal approvals. No information was available about the third bid.
Attentive Energy, which also has preliminary approval for a wind farm 42 miles (67 kilometers) from Seaside Heights, said Wednesday it is proposing a second project in New Jersey but did not provide details.
Atlantic Shores said it also submitted a bid that does not propose a new project. Instead, the application seeks to re-tender the first part of the project, called Atlantic Shores 1, and bundle it with the second half, Atlantic Shores 2.
The utilities board is allowing companies to rebid previously approved projects. If they are approved in this fourth round of bidding, their original approval is canceled and the company must submit a $100 million irrevocable letter of credit, among other requirements.
Atlantic Shores has not indicated what aspects of the original offer it plans to modify.
As originally announced, the two-phase Atlantic Shores project would be built between Atlantic City and Long Beach Island in southern New Jersey. It would generate 2,800 megawatts, enough to power 1 million homes. It could not be determined Wednesday whether a potential re-tender would change that figure.
The Interior Department said the Atlantic Shores project would be about 8.7 miles from shore at its closest point. But the company has previously said it will not build all the way to that line and that the closest turbines will be at least 12.8 miles from shore.
Atlantic Shores is a joint partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF-RE Offshore Development LLC.
The third bidder had not yet come forward on Wednesday evening and the BPU did not reveal the identities of the bidders, saying only that the bids would be assessed and processed in December.
Two other projects previously received preliminary approval from the state.
One from Chicago-based Invenergy and New York-based energyRE. Named Leading light windIt would be built 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the coast of Long Beach Island and would consist of up to 100 turbines, enough to power 1 million homes.
Another from Attentive Energy would not be visible from the shoreline. It is a joint venture between Paris-based TotalEnergies and London-based Corio Generation, and would power more than 650,000 homes.
Attentive Energy was one of many companies that has failed to reach a final agreement for a wind farm in New York in april.
New Jersey has set ambitious goals to become the East Coast hub of the offshore wind industry, building a manufacturing facility for wind turbine components in the southern part of the state to support the growth of the industry here.
But it’s been a bumpy ride so far. Last October, Danish wind developer Orsted cancels two offshore wind farms who were already far into the approval process and said it no longer made financial sense to continue with the projects.
And New Jersey has become the epicenter of residents and political opposition to offshore wind energy, with numerous community groups and elected officials — most of them Republicans — saying the industry is environmentally damaging and inherently unprofitable.
Advocates say widespread use of wind and solar energy is essential to shifting away from burning fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change.
___
Follow Wayne Parry on X at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC