Wind

New Jersey closes remaining tender for landmark SAA offshore wind transmission

Onshore buildout to link previously awarded coastal landing project to PJM’s grid to enable 6GW of generation

Phil murphy. Phil murphy.
Phil murphy. Phil murphy.Foto: governor's office
US Offshore Wind Editor, Recharge

New Jersey closed the second phase of its landmark offshore wind transmission tender today (Thursday) for infrastructure to bring electricity from a previously awarded coastal landing site to the point of interconnection (POI) to grid operator PJM's network.

Four developers submitted proposals for duct banks and cable vaults to bring offshore wind power landed at the Sea Girt National Guard training centre to the Larrabee electricity collector station 12 miles (19 km) away.

The so-called “prebuild infrastructure” (PBI) had been included in the round 3 offshore wind tender where New Jersey awarded 3.7GW of generation capacity in January but was carved out “minimise costs and risks to ratepayers,” regulator New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) said.

“Installing these ducts and vaults as a single construction effort would minimise environmental and community impacts by resulting in a single shore crossing and a single or limited onshore corridor to the POI,” said Jim Ferris, deputy director at NJBPU’s division of clean energy, last October when the carve-out was approved.

The regulator’s review found that including the transmission infrastructure with generation, to be funded through offshore wind renewable energy credits (ORECs) as part of an awarded project, “represented an unreasonable burden for New Jersey's ratepayers”, said Ferris.

Among the bidders were utilities Con Edison and National Grid who submitted their joint Garden State Energy Path proposal to “provide a route that reduces community disruption and maximises benefits,” said Will Hazelip, president of National Grid Ventures, US Northeast.

“Pre-build infrastructure is a smart and coordinated approach to transmission for offshore wind, reducing the need to separately construct transmission infrastructure for each offshore wind project,” Hazelip added.

SAA pioneer

NJBPU originally included the PBI infrastructure package as option 1b in New Jersey’s landmark State Agreement Approach (SAA) transmission procurement, the first under PJM’s federally approved process that allows public policy goals to carry equal weight to reliability, need, and cost when planning upgrades.
In October 2022 the state selected the Larrabee Tri-Collector Solution submitted by Mid-Atlantic Offshore Development (MAOD), a joint venture between the two energy majors behind Atlantic Shores project – Shell and EDF – and Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L).

Any awarded project is expected to be operational by 2029, the regulator said.

SAA 1 covers only 6GW, short of governor Phil Murphy's 11GW target, however, and the state is considering a SAA 2.0 request for proposals to cover the remaining capacity.

(Copyright)
Published 4 April 2024, 23:19Updated 4 April 2024, 23:19
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