Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Project 1

The Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Project 1 is the first of the two planned offshore wind energy generation projects that will be located off the coast of New Jersey, the US.

Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Project 1 (Atlantic Shores Project 1) and Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Project 2 (Atlantic Shores Project 2) are owned by Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, a 50:50 partnership between Shell New Energies US and EDF-RE Offshore Development.

In 2021, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJ BPU) awarded Atlantic Shores the right to receive Offshore Renewable Energy Credits (ORECs) allowance to deliver 1,510MW (1.5GW) offshore renewable wind energy into the State of New Jersey.

It also won the NJ BPU contract to develop the wind project in the same year.

In September 2021, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in the US published a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind projects and initiated a 30-day public comment period.

This will be followed by publishing a scoping report and potential issues that should be assessed in the Atlantic Shores Draft EIS.

The construction of Atlantic Shores Project 1 is expected to commence in 2024 with production slated to begin in 2027.

Once complete, the 1.5GW project will become the largest single project in New Jersey and will generate enough clean energy to power more than 700,000 US homes. It is also expected to generate $848m in economic benefits for the state.

Location and site details

According to the construction and operations plan submitted, the two offshore wind energy generation projects will be located within the southern portion of Lease Area OCSA 0499 (the Lease Area).

The lease area encompasses an area of 183,253 acres on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) within the New Jersey Wind Energy Area (NJWEA). It is situated around 10-20 miles off the coast of New Jersey between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light.

The two projects will be located in an approximately 102,124-acre (413.3km²) Wind Turbine Area (WTA), of which Project 1 will comprise 219.2km² of the WTA on the western side.

Project 2 will be located in the eastern 128.9km² of the WTA.

Project details

Atlantic Shores’ WTA will feature wind turbine generators (WTGs) and multiple offshore substations (OSSs). It may also have a meteorological (met) tower and/or meteorological and oceanographic (metocean) buoys.

The layout of the WTA will aim to maximise renewable energy production and have minimal impact on existing marine uses.

The wind turbine generators (WTGs) and OSSs for the two projects will be connected by two separate systems of inter-array cables and/or inter-link cables. The export cables within designed Export Cable Corridors (ECCs) will transport the electricity to the shore.

There will be one or two landfall sites on the New Jersey coastline. From the landfall sites, the onshore interconnection cables will be laid underground to new onshore substation sites and then to existing substations.

The offshore wind projects will be interconnected into the electrical grid at the Cardiff Substation point of interconnection (POI) in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey and/or the Larrabee Substation POI in Howell, New Jersey.

The construction phase for each project will begin onshore, and then offshore facilities will be built that may involve the use of different types of vessels.

Atlantic Shores Project 1 and Atlantic Shores Project 2 are expected to operate for up to 30 years.

Although Project 1 and Project 2 will be electrically distinct from one another, the projects will be interconnected at the two POIs to accommodate the maximum amount of electricity that could be generated by the projects.

All the projects’ facilities will be designed to operate autonomously. A new O&M facility is expected to be built in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to support the projects.

Infrastructure

Overall, the two projects will have up to 200 WTGs.

Atlantic Shores Project 1 will feature 105 to 136 WTGs. Each wind turbine will have a rotor diameter of up to 280m and will be installed on three main foundation types- piled, suction bucket, and gravity foundations.

The first project will have up to five small offshore substations (OSSs), two medium OSSs, or two large OSSs. These substations will collect the power generated from the WTGs and deliver it to the shore via export cables.

Up to 440km of high voltage alternating current (HVAC) inter-array cables will be used for Project 1 to connect strings of WTGs to a shared OSS. Project 1 will also include up to 30km of HVAC inter-link cables connecting to OSSs.

During the construction of Project 1, one permanent met tower and up to three temporary metocean buoys may be installed.

Contractors involved

On 6 October 2022, Atlantic Shores announced Vestas will provide V236-15MWtm offshore wind turbines for the project. The installation of turbines is expected in 2027.

Vestas is planning to establish a nacelle assembly facility at the New Jersey Wind Port in Salem County for the assembly and testing of the hub, cooler top, and heli-hoist modules. The company will also deliver a comprehensive wind turbine service solution after the wind project commences operations.

In October 2022, Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Project 1 selected Ramboll as the design and structural engineering firm for the wind turbine foundations.

In December 2022, EEW American Offshore Structures entered into a Pre-Commitment and Capacity Reservation Agreement (PCCRA) with Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Project 1 for the production of monopiles for the 1.5GW offshore wind project.

In May 2021, Atlantic Shores renewed contract with Fugro for real-time wind and metocean measurements off the coast of New Jersey for two years.