It is an unsurprising but unfortunate reality that the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJ BPU) today moved to terminate the State Agreement Approach (SAA) it had reached with regional grid manager, PJM, in 2021.The SAA was a first-of-its-kind competitive process that would have allowed New Jersey and the grid manager to develop offshore wind transmission more efficiently and effectively, generating savings that would have been passed along to ratepayers. Through the SAA, the BPU solicited and selected projects to develop the pathway for multiple offshore wind transmission lines (prebuild infrastructure project) and a single point of interconnection to the grid (the Larrabee Collector Station). The project would have allowed minimal disruption to surrounding communities and provided certainty for offshore wind developers around transmission and interconnection.
Given the Trump Administration’s aggressive and illegal actions to stop offshore wind projects in our region–including the recent agreement it reached with the firm Total Energies to use taxpayer dollars to buy back an offshore wind lease–the Sherrill Administration had little choice but to cancel the agreement, given that there were no viable offshore wind projects to plug in and use the infrastructure.
As energy demand continues to increase, climate impacts worsen, and volatility of existing fossil-based fuels worsens an energy affordability crisis, developing renewable energy like offshore wind– a proven success –remains essential to New Jersey’s energy future. And with courts continuing to halt or reverse Trump Administration efforts to stifle renewables like wind, it’s only a matter of time when approaches like the SAA will become viable again.
We cannot fault the Sherrill Administration for making this decision today, but this must be only . a temporary setback. The governor should ensure that the BPU and DEP are doing all in their power to lay the groundwork for the future offshore wind transmission that we know we will need, so we can build it on a parallel timeframe with new generation projects. We cannot allow this setback to create any further delay on New Jersey’s inexorable path to a renewable future.
