Biden’s offshore wind plan could enhance initiative

The Biden administration announced Monday what it called “a set of bold actions” to jump-start offshore wind that could provide a big boost to New Jersey’s own ambitious plans for wind power generation off its coast.

National climate adviser Gina McCarthy, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg met with state officials, industry executives, and labor leaders to announce a goal of producing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030 while reducing carbon emissions and creating thousands of renewable-energy jobs.

Currently, the U.S. has only one functioning offshore wind farm, located off Block Island, near the coast of Rhode Island, but multiple states have already committed to installing up to 31 gigawatts of offshore power by 2035, enough to power millions of homes. The projects, however, are all at various stages of readiness, and many are awaiting reviews and permits. The shared federal goal could make things easier.

The White House said its new goal will create thousands of jobs along the East Coast, into the Gulf of Mexico, and along the Pacific Coast. And many of those will be good-paying union jobs, it said. Though states are proposing the projects, the farms would be located in federal waters. The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management awards the leases.

New Jersey’s first wind project, Ocean Wind, is to be built by the Danish multinational Ørsted, in partnership with PSEG, which is the parent company of PSE&G, the state’s largest publicly owned utility. When complete in 2024, the wind farm, set about 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City, will generate 1,100 megawatts, enough to power 500,000 homes every year.

With offshore wind, New Jersey could be launching its biggest job creator ‘since the casinos’

“President Biden has declared very clearly that when he thinks of climate, he thinks of people and jobs — good-paying, union jobs,” McCarthy said Monday.