Wind

'Like a new Hoover Dam': New Jersey breaks ground on flagship US wind port

Groundbreaking marks start to construction of $400m offshore wind manufacturing and assembly site, set to support Orsted’s giant Ocean Wind project off eastern seaboard

Groundbreaking at New Jersey Wind Port, attended by New Jersey state governor Phil Murphy
Groundbreaking at New Jersey Wind Port, attended by New Jersey state governor Phil MurphyFoto: Tim Ferry | Recharge
  • Tim Ferry

New Jersey has broken ground on the US’ first dedicated offshore ‘wind port’, which will start life as a mashalling facility for developer Orsted but is foreseen expanding into a manufacturing and assembly site that was likened by the US Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh today to the Hoover Dam in its potential impact on American industrial history.

Being built on land leased from PSEG, the corporate arm of public power utility PSE&G, the $400m New Jersey Wind Port will service developments planned off the Garden State but also many set to be built in along the eastern seaboard as part of the Biden Administration’s ambition of seeing 30GW of offshore plant turning by the end of the decade.

“This more than $250m investment will position New Jersey as both the epicentre of the nation's offshore wind industry and the head of the offshore wind supply chain,” said state governor Phil Murphy, speaking against the backdrop of the Hope Creek and Salem nuclear power stations in Lower Alloways Creek.

“It will provide essential staging assembly and manufacturing activities related to offshore wind projects up and down the east coast.”

Walsh, standing alongside the governor at the groundbreaking site, said: “Projects like these go down in history for putting the nation on a better path. It will create jobs for an inclusive workforce and a strong middle class.”

The state administration is pursuing one of the country’s most ambitious offshore wind plans with plans to have 7.5GW of offshore wind capacity online by 2035. Infrastructure such as the wind port is seen as a major step towards establishing New Jersey as a leader in the fast-emerging sector, with wider expectation that its development will create1,500 new jobs in the state and generate some $500m in annual economic activity.
Construction of the wind port will be carried out in two phases, with the first stage slated to be complete by late-2023 in time to handle assembly and installation work for Orsted’s giant 1.1GW project, being developed by the Danish utility with PSEG via a 75-25 partnership.
Last June, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities awarded power purchase agreements for a combined 2.66GW of offshore wind capacity to Shell-EDF joint venture Atlantic Shores (1.51GW) and Orsted for Ocean Wind 2 (1.15GW), bringing the state’s total planned capacity to over 4GW.

The groundbreaking hosted the signing of a project labour agreement (PLA) between AECOM-Tishman, the lead contractor for the site’s construction, and the United Building Trades Council of Southern New Jersey AFL-CIO.

With a view to maximising local inclusion in the economic development to be generate by construction of the wind port, the PLA stipulates that 25% of the value of the contracts be awarded to small businesses, and that 15% go to businesses owned by minorities, women, and veterans.

Flora Ramos, director of community relations of AECOM-Tishman, said that the agreement “set a new standard for inclusion of minority and women workers and business owners”.

Ports such as the New Jersey Wind Port are among a growing number of major industrial infrastructure investments taking shape in time with the planned offshore wind build-out in the US Atlantic, with similar facilities under development in New Bedford, Massachusetts, New London, Connecticut and Arthur Kill in New York.
(Copyright)
Published 10 September 2021, 21:33Updated 10 September 2021, 21:33
USUS AtlanticNew JerseyPhil MurphyOrsted