New Jersey Grants Ørsted’s Motions to Vacate Orders for Cancelled Ocean Wind Projects

August 16, 2024, by Adrijana Buljan

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has granted a motion submitted by Ørsted on 1 July, requesting the BPU vacate the orders issued for the two Ocean Wind projects offshore New Jersey after the developer cancelled the projects last year.

On 14 August, the BPU accepted Ørsted’s motions to vacate the BPU order approving Ocean Wind 1 as a Qualified Offshore Wind Project (QOWP) and four orders granting the Ocean Wind 1 project easements on property owned by the City of Ocean City and the County of Cape May. The New Jersey BPU also granted the motion to vacate the order approving the Ocean Wind 2 project as a QOWP.

The move comes after Ørsted and the State of New Jersey reached a settlement agreement in May under which the developer will pay New Jersey USD 125 million (approximately EUR 114 million) to settle claims over the company’s cancellation of two offshore wind farm projects.

According to a press release issued by the County of Cape May administration, the State of New Jersey agreed to let Ørsted keep USD 175 million (approx. EUR 159 million) in escrow funds in exchange for vacating the BPU orders.

“Cape May County’s actions before the Appellate Division and the Federal District Court remain active at this time”, the county administration stated on 14 August.

In its results for the first half of 2024, Ørsted noted that for Ocean Wind 1, the company had “finalised the negotiation of several contracts and settled the claim with the state of New Jersey with a better outcome than assumed”.

Ørsted cancelled its Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 projects in October 2023, saying additional supplier delays further impacted the project schedule and led to an additional significant project delay. The developer also said that increases in long-dated US interest rates further deteriorated the business case.

Ørsted removed Ocean Wind 1, Ocean Wind 2, and Skipjack Wind projects in the US from its portfolio of awarded capacity in December 2023. In total, these three projects Ørsted had in the US amounted to a capacity of 3.2 GW.