State Officially Throws Out Ocean Wind Offshore Projects

OCEAN CITY, NJ — The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities formally vacated all orders approving the Ocean Wind One and Ocean Wind Two projects owned by Orsted that were originally set to be constructed off the coast of Ocean City.

Cape May County officials celebrated this decision as a victory, noting that it makes it more difficult for other offshore wind projects to utilize the initial lease area.

The news follows developer Orsted pulling out of the projects suddenly last year, citing supply chain issues. However, county officials believe the strength of local opposition to the projects also played a major part in the decision.

The State of New Jersey agreed to let Orsted keep $175 million in escrow funds in exchange for vacating the BPU Orders. Cape May County’s actions before the Appellate Division and the Federal District Court remain active at this time.

“Today is a very important day in our ongoing opposition to these environmentally destructive offshore wind projects,” said Cape May County Commission Director Len Desiderio.

“As we have seen in Nantucket over the past few weeks, these industrial electricity-generating facilities represent an unacceptable threat to our environment and, consequently, to our local economy,” Desiderio said. “In Nantucket, the disintegration of a single turbine blade has led to tens of thousands of pounds of fiberglass, foam, industrial adhesive, and other contaminants in the water and washing up on local beaches, which have had to be closed. We cannot allow that to happen to Cape May County.”

“They say you can never know which straw will break the camel’s back,” said former New Jersey Superior Court Judge and Cape May County Special Counsel for Offshore Wind, Michael Donohue. “But we can know for sure that the County of Cape May and its partners in the fishing and tourism industries as well as respectable environmental groups certainly contributed to Orsted’s decision to abandon the Ocean Wind industrial offshore wind projects. And that decision led directly to their agreement to have the Board of Public Utilities rescind their approvals for Ocean Wind One and Ocean Wind Two. We have informed the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court that we believe that there are still Constitutional and conflicts-of-interest questions that they should hear. We are also likely to amend our Federal Court filings since the actions of the NJBPU would appear to have nullified Orsted’s federal permits.”