Expect more legislative and behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the governor.
Your editorial “New Jersey’s Wind Giveaway Gets Worse” (July 10) understates the costs to New Jersey consumers. According to data published in March 2022 by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average construction cost for offshore wind, ignoring financing costs, was over $6,000 a kilowatt. That doesn’t include the cost of the offshore cabling needed to bring the electricity the project will generate to the New Jersey shore.
For Ørsted’s 1,100-megawatt Ocean Wind project, that implies a cost of about $7 billion. The company, which is owned by the Danish government, will thus reap an investment tax credit of around $2 billion—more than the original estimated construction cost of $1.6 billion. That average residential customer would have to write a check for $200 to the Danish government. Industrial customers will hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars, just the ticket to improve their competitiveness.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Jonathan A. Lesser, PhD, is the president of Continental Economics, an economic consulting firm, and an adjunct fellow with the Manhattan Institute.
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