The Ocean Wind is a 1.1GW offshore wind project proposed to be developed off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey, US. It will be the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in New Jersey and one of the biggest such facilities in the US.
Construction on the project is expected to be started after a final investment decision (FID) by Orsted in the second half of 2020, while commissioning is expected in 2024.
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The Ocean Wind project is expected to generate enough electricity for more than 500,000 households in New Jersey.
Ocean Wind development partners
Danish offshore wind farm developer Orsted will develop and operate the offshore wind farm with support from Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), a diversified energy company based in New Jersey.
PSEG will provide energy management services as well as the potential lease of land for use during the project development and execution phase.
Orsted currently holds a 100% stake in Ocean Wind. It was in talks with PSEG to sell a 25% equity stake in the project as of December 2019.
Location and site details
The Ocean wind farm is proposed to be developed on a 64,944ha-lease area in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 24km off the coast of Atlantic City in New Jersey.
The average water depth in the project area is approximately 24m.
Ocean Wind project background
The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) approved the site assessment plan filed by Ocean Wind, in May 2018.
In June 2019, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) awarded the offshore wind renewable energy certificates (OREC) to Orsted’s 1.1GW Ocean Wind project, following competitive bidding for New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm that was initiated in September 2018.
The other two applicants that participated in the bidding were Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, a partnership between EDF Renewables and Shell New Energies, and the Equinor-owned Boardwalk Wind.
The Ocean Wind project is being undertaken as part of New Jersey’s Offshore Wind Economic Development Act (OWEDA) that envisions 3.5GW of offshore wind capacity in the state by 2030.
Ocean wind farm make-up
The Ocean offshore wind farm will comprise more than 90 Haliade-X 12MW wind turbines from GE Renewable Energy.
The Haliade-X 12MW wind turbine, with 12MW rated output, is considered to be the world’s most powerful offshore wind turbine.
The electricity generated by each turbine will be gathered and transmitted to offshore substation platforms through a network of inner array cables.
The power output of the wind farm will be evacuated onshore into the grid through subsea export cables.
The operations and maintenance base for the wind farm will be located in Atlantic City.
Ocean Wind turbine features
With a 220m-diameter rotor and 107m-long blades, each Haliade-X 12MW turbine will have a swept area of 38,000m². The tip height of the turbine will be 260m.
A single turbine, operating at optimum capacity, can generate 67GWh of clean electricity, which will be enough to power approximately 16,000 average households.
Haliade-X 12MW wind turbine development
The first Haliade-X 12MW wind turbine was unveiled by GE Renewable Energy in July 2019.
The prototype of the turbine has been installed for testing at Maasvlakte 2 in the Port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, which started producing power in November 2019.
The nacelle of the turbine is also being tested at Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult’s testing facility in Blyth, Northumberland, UK.
GE Renewable Energy hopes to receive Type Certification for the turbine in 2020 and start mass production for commercial use in 2021.
Apart from Ocean Wind, Haliade-X 12MW has been chosen as the preferred wind turbine for the 120MW Skipjack wind project in the US and the 3.6GW Dogger Bank scheme in the UK.
Contractors for Ocean Wind site assessment
AXYS Technologies, a remote environmental monitoring solutions provider based in Canada, provided the WindSentinel FLiDAR buoy to measure wind and wave conditions in the project area in July 2028.
Geo-data specialist Fugro was engaged to carry out geophysical and geotechnical surveys on the Ocean Wind project site.
