Ørsted just axed plans for two New Jersey offshore wind farms – here’s why
New Jersey’s governor is furious because Ørsted canceled two huge offshore wind farms off the New Jersey coast – this is what happened.
Ocean Wind 1 won’t be New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm after all.
In a major reversal, Ørsted says it’s killing the 1,100-megawatt (MW) Ocean Wind 1 and 1,148-MW Ocean Wind 2 projects, just as construction was about to start on Ocean Wind 1. Electrek only just reported on October 12 that Ørsted had put up a $100 million guarantee that it would have Ocean Wind 1 online by December 2025.
In a statement today, David Hardy, group EVP and CEO Americas at Ørsted cited “high inflation, rising interest rates, and supply chain bottlenecks” for the cancellation.
Ørsted says it intends to retain the seabed lease area and consider its best options as part of a US offshore wind portfolio review it’s conducting. It has an update planned for its Q4 2023 results announcement.
And on Ørsted’s earnings call this morning, Ørsted CEO Mads Nipper went into more detail about what defeated the two projects. He told reporters that the biggest reason is “further significant delays on [installation] vessel availability.” He didn’t name the installation vessel company, but the Ocean Wind 1 project has so far been working with vessels belonging to Belgium-based wind farm installer DEME Group.
He went on to explain that a lack of installation vessels would mean a multi-year delay for Ocean Wind 1. That would mean the company would have to re-contract all its project scopes at “expectedly higher prices – that was the reason for the swing.”
In July, to help keep the financially struggling projects afloat, Governor Phil Murphy (D-NJ) signed a law that allowed Ørsted to keep federal tax credits that it otherwise would have had to return to ratepayers.
So, unsurprisingly, Murphy’s pretty angry. New Jersey taxpayers won’t lose funds from the pullout, but the state and its residents are losing a critical source of clean energy, billions of dollars in investments, and thousands of local jobs the two projects were slated to provide.
In a statement, Murphy said:
Today’s decision by Ørsted to abandon its commitments to New Jersey is outrageous and calls into question the company’s credibility and competence.
As recently as several weeks ago, the company made public statements regarding the viability and progress of the Ocean Wind 1 project. In recognition of the challenges inherent in large and complex projects, my Administration in partnership with legislative leadership insisted upon important protections that ensure New Jersey will receive $300 million to support the offshore wind sector should Orsted’s New Jersey projects fail to proceed.
I have directed my Administration to review all legal rights and remedies and to take all necessary steps to ensure that Orsted fully and immediately honors its obligations.
Electrek’s Take
It’s a major setback for sure, seeing how New Jersey has a 7.5 gigawatt (GW) of offshore wind by 2035 target, and there’s also that pesky thing called climate change, but all is not lost. The 1.5 GW Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind project is still moving forward off the coast of Atlantic City, and the state is expected to announce another offshore wind solicitation at the beginning of 2024. Nearly 40 New Jersey advocates released a statement today that reaffirms their support for offshore wind.
And in another bit of news that slightly takes the sting off, Nipper said that Ørsted will move forward on Revolution Wind, Connecticut and Rhode Island’s 704 MW offshore wind farm, as it’s secured an installation vessel – the Scylla – so the company feels “comfortable moving [the project] forward.” The South Fork project in New York State is also quickly progressing.
And one final point: The “grassroots” group in Cape May County that’s been fighting the Ocean Wind projects wants to take credit for their demise. They claim that Ørsted is running scared in “the face of unrelenting opposition” from Cape May County after they recently filed a federal lawsuit.
As I’ve said, I don’t take the Cape May County government’s objections seriously. It’s led by Michael J. Donohue, Republican County chairman, who is “special counsel on offshore wind” to the group. And its counsel has extensive ties to a big-oil-funded legal movement that generally works to stop climate policy.
Further, the group’s “studies” that it cites to back its lies about wind farms killing whales and birds sources aren’t relevant or credible – for example, the noise from one oil tanker is 20,000x more disruptive to ocean life than one stationary wind turbine. There’s more than a whiff of politics, not science, around their objections. They ultimately got what they wanted for now but didn’t cause it.
Read more: The US’s largest offshore wind farm just got the green light
Photo: Ørsted
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GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.
GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.
As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:
- seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
- two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
- two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona
Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.
“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”
GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.
Electrek’s Take
Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”
All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.
SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.
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While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.
Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.
As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”
The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.
“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”
The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.
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There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.
The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”
The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”
In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”
Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.
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