Deepwater Wind grabs another offshore project

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has chosen Garden State Offshore Energy, a joint venture of PSEG Renewable Generation and Deepwater Wind, as the preferred developer of a 350 megawatt wind farm off the coast of New Jersey.

This is the second recent project for Deepwater Wind, which last month won a bid to develop an offshore wind farm for Rhode Island (see Rhode Island picks Deepwater Wind for offshore project).

"Deepwater Wind is excited to partner with PSEG and the State of New Jersey. This project is an important part of our strategy for the northeast United States," said Chris Brown, CEO of Deepwater Wind, in a statement.

Deepwater Wind is backed by First Wind, D.E. Shaw & Co. and Ospraie Management.

Garden State Offshore Energy's proposal for the New Jersey project calls for 96 wind turbines 16 to 20 miles off the coast of Cape May and Atlantic counties. The venture said the wind farm could begin generating energy in 2012 with the entire project operational in 2013.

"PSEG believes that to meet the challenges of climate change, we need to move forward in three areas — expanding energy efficiency and conservation, investing in renewables and planning for additional clean central station power," said Ralph Izzo, chairman, CEO and president of PSEG. "We believe that offshore energy has great potential to bring clean energy and jobs to New Jersey."

PSEG Renewable Generation is a subsidiary of the Newark, N.J.-based utility Public Service Enterprise Group (NYSE: PEG).

The Garden State Offshore Energy venture said it will start work on the evaluation of the project's environmental impacts and wind resource quality as well as begin the permitting process at both the state and federal levels.

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