The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Wind Program will provide the Fishermen’s Energy Atlantic City Wind Farm with up to $47 million in federal grants over the next four years for an offshore wind energy demonstration pilot project.
The demonstration pilot project at Fishermen’s Energy Atlantic City Wind Farm is one of three DOE-funded sites in the U.S. (the other two sites are located off the coasts of Virginia Beach, Virginia and Coos Bay, Oregon). The overall project goal is to deploy demonstration-scale offshore wind projects in U.S. waters by 2017.
“Projects like Fishermen’s Atlantic City Windfarm and the other projects sponsored by the Department of Energy are a first step in the direction of a building a robust sustainable energy infrastructure,” said Chris Wissemann, Fishermen’s Energy CEO. “The support provided by Congress, specifically the NJ delegation, and the Department of Energy is critical to bringing offshore wind to the United States.”
The 25 MW Fishermen’s Energy wind farm three miles off the coast of Atlantic City could become the first offshore wind project in the United States. That is, if developers can get past their legal woes with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities — which has reject the project twice based on potential costs to customers. If the BPU would change its stance, Fisherman’s Energy says it could begin construction of the wind farm immediately.
Further increasing New Jersey’s potential for offshore wind, the Department of the Interior is making 344,000 offshore acres available for leasing to wind energy projects off the coast of New Jersey.
Based on an analysis prepared for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the New Jersey Wind Energy Area — as currently delineated and if fully developed — may be able to support up to 3400 MW of commercial wind generation or enough to power about 1.2 million homes.
The BOEM, who identified the New Jersey Wind Energy Area in consultation with federal, state, tribal and local government partners of its New Jersey Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force, proposes to auction the Wind Energy Area as two leases: the South Lease Area (160,480 acres) and the North Lease Area (183,353 acres). The Wind Energy Area begins about seven nautical miles off the coast from Atlantic City.
The DOI has been working to establish a sustainable offshore wind program through its “Smart from the Start” wind energy initiative for the Atlantic Coast. So far, BOEM has awarded five commercial wind energy leases off the Atlantic coast: two non-competitive leases (Cape Wind in Nantucket Sound off Massachusetts and an area off Delaware) and three competitive leases (two offshore Massachusetts-Rhode Island and another offshore Virginia). Competitive lease sales have generated about $5.4 million in high bids for about 277,550 acres in federal waters.
2014 FierceMarkets, a division of Questex Media Group LLC