New Jersey is targeting a winter 2023-2024 completion date for the first phase of its South Jersey offshore wind port, manufacturing and marshaling hub, which it hopes will give the state a first-mover advantage in the race to provide a centralized East Coast supply chain and operations center for the industry.

State officials outlined their plans for the New Jersey Wind Port on Friday at a meeting of the New Jersey Alliance For Action, which works to promote local infrastructure construction. The audience of 130 people included construction company executives, engineers and consultants, and union representatives, many of whom said they hope to get business from the offshore wind sector.

Speakers at the event said the wind port under development and a monopile fabrication facility already in construction would be sources of contracts and urged those present to consider bidding for work on both projects.

But, Tim Sullivan, CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJ EDA), acknowledged that other states are moving in the same direction.

“There’s a real competition,” Sullivan said. “Some of you who [work in] multiple states know that. New York and Virginia and Maryland; Delaware, Massachusetts, in particular; Connecticut, Rhode Island ― there’s a battle on. Who is going to be leader of the pack here?”

He and other speakers, said that New Jersey is well positioned to succeed due, in part, to the vigorous support and investment the offshore wind sector and the port have received from Gov. Phil Murphy and the legislature. Sullivan called the port “the first purpose-built offshore wind port for marshalling and manufacturing in America, period.”

New Jersey has committed $250 million to the first phase of the wind port, which is expected to cost about $400 million, and broke ground on the project on Sept. 9. The state has also signed a 78-year lease on the property with owner PSEG. (See: NJ Breaks Ground on Offshore Wind Hub.)

“There’s a real opportunity here to differentiate ourselves and position ourselves to be the capital of American offshore wind,” Sullivan said.

Location, Location and No Bridges

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has awarded three offshore wind projects in two solicitations: the 1,100-MW Ocean Wind 1 and 1,148-MW Ocean Wind 2 projects, both developed by Ørsted; and the 1,510-MW Atlantic Shores project, a joint venture between EDF Renewables North America and Shell New Energies US. The BPU is planning to hold three more solicitations over the next five years to help the state reach its target of deploying 7,500 MW of offshore wind by 2035. (See: NJ Awards Two Offshore Wind Projects.)

New Jersey’s advantages include the wind port’s location on the mid-Atlantic coast, which means that 50% of the offshore wind projects planned in the U.S. are “within one day’s steam,” according to Sullivan’s presentation at the meeting. Sited on the Delaware River in Lower Alloways Creek, the port’s location will allow vessels to reach the offshore wind sites without passing below any bridge spans, a key benefit because the turbines can be as high as the Washington Monument and are shipped to their destination upright, Sullivan said.

The New Jersey port also will benefit from the swift progress on the construction of a monopile factory in the nearby Port of Paulsboro, state officials said. The $250 million facility will provide monopiles — the tubes driven into the ocean floor for the turbines — for Ocean Wind 1 and 2, and Atlantic Shores.

It broke ground in April, and construction of the first of five manufacturing buildings is underway and expected to be completed in early 2022, with a goal of completing 100 monopiles a year, said Andy Saporito, CEO of the South Jersey Port Corporation. The manufacture of monopiles is expected to begin in 2023, and the entire project is slated to be completed in 2024, according to corporation’s website.  

Jonathan Kennedy, the EDA’s managing director for infrastructure, said that with 35 GW of “committed and planned offshore wind from Maine to South Carolina,” New Jersey can expect to secure a chunk of that business well into the future. Those projects could total up to 3,000 turbines that will need to be built, he said.

“I think we have first-mover advantage with the wind port,” he said. “We’ve already got runs on the board with Paulsboro, the first monopile facility in the U.S.,” said Kennedy, a native of England, using a British sporting term that means one team already has an advantage.

Sullivan said the wind port and Paulsboro are two of five locations that the state is looking to develop to serve the offshore wind industry. The others are the Port of New York and New Jersey in the New York Harbor, an operations and maintenance facility in Atlantic City and a facility in Cape May.   

Help Wanted

Attendees at the event included a dozen construction companies, among them AECOM Tishman, contract manager for the wind port, and J. Fletcher Creamer & Sons, which also is doing work on the project. Several engineering firms and unions also attended the meeting, including the International Longshoremen’s Association, the Construction & General Laborers’ Union, Local 172 of South Jersey, the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 68.

The United Building Trades Council of Southern New Jersey AFL-CIO signed an agreement with AECOM Tishman stating that union labor would be used for the wind port, and Atlantic Shores in February said it had an agreement to use union labor in the construction and operation of its offshore wind farm. 

Gareth C. Middleton, senior vice president for AECOM Tishman, said the wind port will be built in two phases. The first will include channel dredging and the construction of at least two vessel berths, along with 30 acres of marshalling space, a 24-acre area for marshalling and manufacturing, and a 35-acre site for additional manufacturing, he said. The first phase will cost about $400 million, and the second phase, which will unfold between 2024 and 2026, could expand the hub’s footprint to 200 acres, adding further space for marshaling and manufacturing, Sullivan said.

Sullivan said that the EDA has created an Offshore Wind Supply Chain Registry of companies interested in providing services to the sector.

“I would highly encourage you, if you are in that category, if you know folks who are in that category of activity, please sign up to the spreadsheet, because it’s really important,” he said. “This is happening. This is real; this is no longer on the drawing board. This is a real project that is now happening.”