Former South Amboy Coal Plant May Become Wind Energy Hub

SOUTH AMBOY, NJ — An energy company based in Queens, New York seeks to convert an abandoned brownfield site in South Amboy into a hub to process wind energy captured off the Jersey Shore.

The company is Rise Light & Power. They site they plan to use is the former E.H. Werner Power Station, which Rise announced Friday they have now assumed ownership of.

This property is known locally as the former Werner coal plant in South Amboy. It is a 26-acre site that was retired as a fossil-fueled power plant in 2015.

Before that, the Werner coal plant had been in operation since the 1930s. It was formerly used by Jersey Central Power & Light and it burned primarily coal to deliver electricity to Central New Jersey.

It is zoned for industrial use and sits in a prime position on Raritan Bay.

Rise plans to now redevelop the property as a renewable energy hub. If the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) approves their plan, the company says it can run enough energy through the site to light up to 1.4 million New Jersey homes.

The energy would come entirely from wind energy off the Jersey Shore: Earlier this year, the Murphy administration approved plans to build the nation's largest wind farm off the Jersey Shore. Built by the Danish energy company Ørsted, this plan calls for approximately 280 wind turbines, stretching over more than 350 acres, from Barnegat Light at the tip of Long Beach Island to Atlantic City. The turbines will be located 10-15 miles off Jersey Shore beaches. It is expected to begin operating in 2024.

Rise envisions that the South Amboy property will serving as a "central interconnection point" to process the energy from that offshore wind farm and deliver it to the New Jersey electric grid.

South Amboy Mayor Fred Henry, a Democrat, said he supports the project. He said it will bring well-paying, unionized jobs to South Amboy.

Rise plans to rename the South Amboy property the "Outerbridge Renewable Connector." On Friday, they submitted their plans to convert the site to the BPU. No energy project in New Jersey can move forward without approval from the BPU.

The BPU previously approved Gov. Murphy's plans for the massive offshore Jersey Shore wind farm.

The BPU will give a yay or nay approval on Rise's proposal either late this year or in 2022, reported MyCentralJersey.com.

Rise said the South Amboy site is ideal because it will allow them to avoid bringing high-voltage power cables ashore at New Jersey's beaches or through residential areas. The Werner property already has an existing substation and switchyard, rail and highway access, a pier and unobstructed access to the Atlantic Ocean.

Think of the South Amboy site as "a giant extension cord, delivering clean energy to the local power grid through upgraded grid infrastructure on the site and to the Deans Substation through buried cables along an existing railroad right of way," said Clint Plummer, CEO of Rise Light & Power. "The power cables will be entirely underground. A proposed battery energy-storage system offers the opportunity for further reliability to the grid."

"Outerbridge solves the challenge of finding appropriate and acceptable cable landing sites by using existing infrastructure that avoids siting transmission lines in sensitive areas like residential neighborhoods and recreational beaches," he added.

The former Werner coal property was once considered polluted by the state Department of Environmental Protection and Rise said it will have to still do some soil remediation at the site.

Rise Light & Power currently owns Long Island City's Ravenswood Generation Station, New York City's largest power generating facility, providing more than 20 percent of New York City's electricity. That power station is their prime asset.

Rise is a subsidiary of LS Power group, a private equity investment firm that invests in energy.

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