Gov. Phil Murphy entered office in 2018 determined to make New Jersey a national leader in offshore wind. He signed executive orders, raised targets to 7,500 megawatts by 2035 and later 11 gigawatts by 2040, and poured resources into ports and supply chains. Yet as he prepares to leave office, not a single turbine spins in state waters. The ambitious program has unraveled. Projects collapsed. Costs soared. Federal policy shifted sharply against development. And now the state has hit pause.
But the story doesn’t end with Murphy. His successor, Gov. Mikie Sherrill, faces a different pressure. Electricity rates keep climbing. Data centers hungry for power to run artificial intelligence threaten to push residential bills even higher. Sherrill’s new plan aims to stop everyday New Jerseyans from subsidizing those massive energy users. The contrast could not be starker. One governor chased green manufacturing dreams that faded. The next seeks to shield ratepayers from the next wave of demand growth.
The troubles for offshore wind mounted steadily. In 2023, Danish developer Ørsted walked away from two major New Jersey projects after supply-chain problems and rising interest rates made them unviable. The state collected $125 million in termination fees, according to reporting by E&E News. Those projects had been expected to power more than a million homes. Their cancellation delivered an early blow to Murphy’s vision.
Then came the federal changes. On his first day in office in January 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order halting new offshore wind approvals and leasing. The move created immediate uncertainty. Developers already struggling with costs faced fresh regulatory and political risk. Politico reported that the Murphy administration responded by announcing it would not provide financial backing to new projects. The Board of Public Utilities canceled the fourth solicitation round. Only one bid had come in. Two others withdrew before submission.
BPU President Christine Guhl-Sadovy acknowledged the difficulties. “Obviously there is a lot of uncertainty around offshore wind under this federal administration, but you can be sure that there’s no uncertainty when it comes to Governor Murphy’s support and mine for offshore wind,” she said in a keynote at a Rowan University conference, as quoted by NJ Spotlight News. Murphy himself called the industry a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” yet added that “now is the time for patience and prudence.”
Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, a joint venture involving EDF Renewables and initially Shell, became the most visible casualty. The project held all necessary federal permits from the final weeks of the Biden administration. It sat just miles off Atlantic City. Yet without state subsidies locked in through the canceled solicitation, progress halted. Shell later exited its stake. In June 2025 the developer formally withdrew its bid for state funding, NJ Spotlight News reported. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Republican whose district includes the Jersey Shore, cheered the news. “This is a huge win for South Jersey,” he said. “There will be no wind farms built off the coast of Southern New Jersey.”
Other projects followed. Invenergy and energyRE abandoned the 2.4-gigawatt Leading Light Wind project in November 2025. The developer cited “economic and regulatory conditions” that made proceeding impossible under the original contract terms, according to a filing with the BPU detailed by Utility Dive. The company expressed regret and left the door open for future solicitations. TotalEnergies reached a settlement with the federal government to recover lease fees after canceling its Attentive Energy projects. By early 2026 the state had terminated its State Agreement Approach with grid operator PJM for coordinated transmission planning, Offshore Wind Biz noted.
The human and economic toll spread. Supporters had promised tens of thousands of jobs and a new manufacturing hub in South Jersey. The New Jersey Wind Port, built specifically for turbine assembly and staging, sat partly idle. Monopiles ordered for canceled projects were cut up and scrapped. Tim Sullivan, chief executive of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, told the Rowan conference he had “never seen a situation where elected officials are celebrating something that is killing jobs,” per NJ Spotlight News.
Opposition from shore communities proved durable. Fishermen worried about impacts to marine life and their livelihoods. Residents feared viewshed damage to tourism. Some environmental groups raised alarms over whale strandings, though federal scientists found no causal link to survey activity. Public support, once near 80 percent in polls, dropped closer to 50 percent. And ratepayers grew wary. Even without turbines in the water, the state had approved rate increases tied to transmission upgrades and prior commitments. One 17 percent hike drew particular ire from Van Drew, who called for BPU resignations.
Into this vacuum steps Sherrill. Elected in November 2025 as a pro-renewables Democrat who defeated a candidate promising to ban offshore turbines, she confronts a new reality. Data centers are exploding across the PJM grid that serves New Jersey. PJM data shows they accounted for 70 percent of projected demand growth in one recent year. Utility companies nationwide requested $31 billion in rate hikes in 2025, more than double the prior year’s total. New Jersey saw electricity prices jump about 20 percent last summer alone.
On June 1, 2026, Sherrill announced a statewide strategy to hold data center owners accountable. “By establishing these guardrails, we will hold data centers accountable, ensure they contribute their fair share, and make sure our communities not only benefit from the AI innovation happening in our state, but have a real hand in shaping it,” she said in a release. The plan seeks to prevent residential bills from subsidizing the power demands of these facilities. Environmental advocates back the move, citing risks to water supplies and added pollution if unchecked growth continues. Similar strains have appeared in states such as Georgia, where a Meta data center drew scrutiny.
The shift reflects broader forces. Offshore wind once seemed an elegant solution. It offered clean power, union jobs, and supply-chain investment without the visual blight of onshore turbines. Inflation, supply shortages, interest rates, and a hostile federal posture changed the math. A federal judge later struck down aspects of Trump’s moratorium, calling it “arbitrary and capricious,” yet the damage to project timelines and investor confidence lingered. Developers canceled. The state delayed transmission projects. Murphy leaves with his signature initiative stalled.
Sherrill inherits the pieces. Her administration must balance growing electricity demand from AI against ratepayer protection. She supports renewables but insists on fairness. Data centers must pay their share rather than shift costs to families already choosing between utility bills and groceries. Meanwhile, the offshore wind supply chain built with state funds searches for alternative uses. Some advocates still hope a future federal administration or improved economics could revive projects. Others see the pause as permanent.
What happens next will shape New Jersey’s energy mix for decades. Nuclear, solar, natural gas with carbon capture, and imported power all sit on the table. Sherrill’s guardrails on data centers represent one early signal. They say residents come first. The era of unchecked subsidies for favored technologies, whatever their color, appears to be facing fresh scrutiny. The turbines that never rose off the Jersey Shore stand as a costly reminder that good intentions alone do not deliver reliable, affordable power.
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