The Danish company Orsted may’ve boarded their longships and sailed back to Denmark, but Governor Murphy is still pursuing offshore wind development off of our own coast. Offshore wind’s economic fortunes aren’t improving since Orsted’s Halloween 2023 cancellation of its Ocean Wind development off of the Jersey Shore. At the time, the company cited “negative developments from adverse impacts relating to supply chains, increased interest rates.”
A new PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audit (click here) discovered wildly rising prices for offshore wind construction in Denmark. Specifically, a $6.7 billion increase in construction costs since 2021.
Congressman Chris Smith (R, NJ-04), who along with Jeff Van Drew (R, NJ-02) has been vocal in his opposition to offshore wind industrialization, called the audit “a major wake-up call for Governor Murphy that even his massive government subsidies and ratepayer hikes won’t be enough to foot the ever-growing bill for his reckless pursuit of offshore wind.”
“The evidence clearly shows that offshore wind projects are nowhere close to being economically viable—regardless of how much taxpayer money Governor Murphy forks over to foreign corporations like Orsted or how high energy prices are increased,” said Smith, adding that the state’s own Division of Rate Counsel has conceded that the Governor’s policies would lead to higher energy costs for ratepayers.
Murphy even failed to recoup the full $300 million which the state was supposed to recover if Orsted pulled out, losing $175 million in a humiliating climbdown deal.
“Instead of continuing to run headlong into an economic buzz saw, Governor Murphy should finally face the facts and stop throwing billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars at unsound, improperly vetted offshore wind projects here in New Jersey,” added Smith “Despite Governor Murphy’s efforts to prop up these projects, Orsted concluded it would still lose money. It’s long past time that Governor Murphy come to the same conclusion and concede that this is a terrible deal for New Jersey taxpayers before he leads our state to catastrophic financial ruin in pursuit of his blind ambition.”
