New Jersey to seek up to 4 GW of offshore wind in third solicitation

December 7 (Renewables Now) - The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) on Tuesday revealed a draft guidance document for the state’s third offshore wind solicitation, which sets a target range for the tender of between 1.2 GW and 4 GW.

In the draft document, the utilities regulator also provided an updated schedule for offshore wind solicitations to reflect the state’s new goal of 11 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2040 that was established earlier this year. It said this is aimed at providing certainty to developers and the offshore wind supply chain.

Solicitation	Minimum capacity target (MW)	Capacity awarded (MW)	Issue date	Submittal date	Award date	Estimated COD
1	1,100	1,100	Q3 2018	Q4 2018	Q2 2019	2024-2025
2	1,200-2,400	2,658	Q3 2020	Q4 2020	Q2 2021	2027-2029
3	1,200-4,000		Q1 2023	Q2 2023	Q4 2023	2030
4	1,200		Q3 2024	Q4 2024	Q2 2025	2032
5	1,200		Q3 2026	Q4 2026	Q2 2027	2034
6	1,200		Q3 2028	Q4 2028	Q2 2029	2036
7	1,200		Q3 2030	Q4 2030	Q2 2031	2038
Total awarded + Target	11,000

The board noted that the awards may be above or below the targets and that the targets beyond the third tender will be adjusted based on previous solicitation awards.

The third solicitation includes new proposed requirements such as offering an inflation adjustment mechanism; providing specific direction on New Jersey’s requirements for new or expanded supply chain facilities; providing minimum standards for the environmental and fisheries protection plans; and incorporating necessary information from NJBPU’s recent transmission decision, where it selected projects to deliver a coordinated solution for offshore wind transmission. The evaluation criteria weighting will be split 70/30 between price and non-price factors.

There will be a virtual public stakeholder meeting on December 13, while written comments will be received by December 29.

New Jersey has so far awarded 3.7 GW of offshore wind capacity in its first two solicitations. In 2019, Ørsted A/S' (CPH:ORSTED) 1.1-GW Ocean Wind project was selected and in 2021, as much as 2.6 GW of capacity was awarded to Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, which is equally owned by EDF Renewables North America and Shell New Energies US, and to Ørsted’s Ocean Wind II project.