Leading Light Wind, a partnership of Invenergy and co-developer energyRe, has requested the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to allow a pause in the development of its offshore wind project off the coast of Long Beach Island while it shops for turbines.
The company stated that it has had difficulties securing a manufacturer for turbine blades for the project and is currently without a supplier.
Leading Light Wind is one of the two projects which were given the green light in January this year. The 2.4GW project should be located some 65 km from shore and is expected to be operational in two 1.2GW phases in 2031 and 2032. It is also the largest state-approved project so far and would be among the furthest away from the coast.
The other project was Attentive Energy’s 1,342MW project located approximately 75 km from shore and expected to be operational in 2031.
Now the developers are asking the board to pause the project through December 20 while a new source of blades is sought. It is worth noting that Vestas’ turbines were seen as unsuitable for the project while the only remaining manufacturer Siemens Gamesa told Invenergy that it was substantially increasing the cost of its turbine offering. General Electric decided against building turbines for the project.
During the pause, the development would not stop completely as an ongoing survey program and preparation of its construction and operations plan would still be conducted.
This is another hit to New Jersey’s offshore wind ambitions as Ørsted already scrapped two offshore wind farms planned off the state’s coast due to rising costs.
Offshore wind opponents, empowered by the blade incident at Vineyard Wind off Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, expressed their pleasure with the plight that Leading Light Wind currently finds itself in.
“Yet another offshore wind developer is finding out for themselves that building massive power installations in the ocean is a fool’s errand, especially off the coast of New Jersey. We hope Leading Light follows the example of Ørsted and leaves New Jersey before any further degradation of the marine and coastal environment can take place,” said Protect Our Coast NJ.
New Jersey still has an ambition of reaching 11GW of usage by 2040. More broadly, the state wants to reach 100% clean energy by 2035 to tackle climate change through wind, green electricity, and solar.
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