A Danish company has taken over the site of a wind energy area in New Jersey.
DONG Energy announced that the company has taken over RES Americas Developments Inc.’s 100,000 megawatt development project rights off the coast of New Jersey.
The New Jersey lease area, which was acquired by RES during the offshore wind auction held in 2015 was taken over by DONG Energy on May 11, 2016. RES Americas will continue to support the development of the lease area .
The New Jersey lease area, which the company has named Ocean Wind, consists of 160,480 acres and is located approximately ten nautical miles offshore and could power 500,000 New Jersey homes. Delaware has about 417,000 housing units in the entire state.
The New Jersey lease is the second U.S. lease area for DONG Energy. The acquisition of the company’s first U.S. lease area is off the coast of Massachusetts.
Prior to the New Jersey competitive lease auction, the Department of Interior’s had awarded nine commercial offshore wind leases, including seven through the competitive lease sale process (two in an area offshore Rhode Island-Massachusetts, another two offshore Massachusetts, two offshore Maryland and one offshore Virginia). The lease sales have generated about $14.5 million in winning bids for more than 700,000 acres in federal waters.
On hold is the Bluewater Wind off-shore wind project of the Delaware coast near Rehoboth Beach. A power purchase contract with Delmarva Power was canceled.
Offshore wind has been affected by economic conditions that have driven down energy prices, opposition from some coastal residents and a lack of enthusiasm by Congress.
Seen as a key to development is connecting the wind farms off the East Coast via electrical cables. Technology giant Google is involved in the project that could run into the billions of dollars.
The connections would also even out of the flow of electricity at times when the wind was not blowing in one offshore wind area. Research from the University of Delaware recently indicated that the costs of a planned offshore wind power project in a Massachusetts are expected to drop sharply, making the power source competitive.
