New Jersey regulators on June 30 announced that Orsted and a consortium between Royal Dutch Shell and EDF have been awarded two offshore wind farm tenders in the Northeastern state, which it said would be a boon for local manufacturing and create 7,000 jobs.

France’s EDF and British-Dutch multinational Shell won the tender to build the 1,510-megawatt (MW) Atlantic Shores wind farm, while Denmark’s Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind farm developer, won the tender to build the 1,148-MW Ocean Wind 2 farm.

The award is the largest in U.S. history and would put the East Coast state on track to meet a goal Governor Phil Murphy set to generate 7,500 MW of offshore wind power by 2035 and the state's requirement to generate 50% renewable energy by mid-century.

“Staff believes that a portfolio solution with two awardees has the potential to position New Jersey favorably to achieve greater manufacturing capacity to support New Jersey’s and neighboring states’ [offshore wind] procurement goals,” the state’s Board of Public Utilities said.

The contracts would result in over 2,658 MW of electricity that can power 1.15 million homes and reduce 5 million short tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, the regulator said.

“New Jersey has been sitting on a gold mine of offshore wind that has been untapped off the Shore and today’s announcement will expand the number of companies that will construct offshore wind turbines,” said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey research and policy center.

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