Murphy, joined by Gore, ups New Jersey’s offshore windmill goal

Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration, which has already approved one offshore wind farm and plans to greenlight two more by 2022, is now more than doubling the state’s goal for how much energy it will receive from wind sources within 15 years.

At a Tuesday event at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, where he was joined by prominent climate activist and former vice president Al Gore, Murphy signed an executive order increasing the state’s wind-energy target from 3,500 megawatts by 2030 to 7,500 megawatts by 2035.

“Here’s my message to the skeptics and the climate deniers, and it really is this simple. Offshore wind is a win for our environment, a win for our economy and a win for our future,” Murphy said.

The new target is enough to power around 3.2 million homes and equals about half of New Jersey’s electricity demand.

“These are big goals and tough challenges, but we can achieve them. We are up to them,” he said. “New Jersey has always been a state of strivers, and there is no better time than now for us to go full Jersey.”

Gore said that “upping New Jersey’s offshore wind energy commitment … is a really significant accomplishment.”

“The latest statistics on sea level rise, measured by assets at risk, New Jersey and New York, this metropolitan area is No. 3 most vulnerable in the world. So the stakes are extremely high,” Gore said.

Earlier this year, the state awarded a contract for 1,100 megawatts of offshore wind power to Ørsted, the largest energy company in Denmark, for a project 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City. The state plans to consider two future solicitations of 1,200 megawatts each in 2020 and 2022.

The state’s overall goal is to have all its energy generated from renewable sources by 2050. Its intermediate goal is for half its energy to be renewable by 2030.

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Michael Symons is State House bureau chief for New Jersey 101.5 and the editor of New Jersey: Decoded. Follow @NJDecoded on Twitter and Facebook. Contact him at michael.symons@townsquaremedia.com