Wind · Analysis
I.What gets rolled on the Delaware
A monopile is a single steel tube, often on the order of a few hundred feet long and wide enough to drive a truck through, that gets hammered into the seabed to hold one wind turbine up. At Paulsboro, flat steel plate is rolled into rings, the rings are welded into cans, and the cans are welded end to end into a full foundation. The pieces are far too big and heavy to move by truck, which is the whole reason the plant sits on a deep-water river rather than off an interstate.
The company doing the work is EEW American Offshore Structures, the United States arm of EEW Group, a German steelmaker. It committed, at last public report, on the order of $250 million to build the Paulsboro plant. The work is specialized heavy welding and fabrication, a few hundred jobs when the line runs at full tilt and fewer when orders thin out.
II.What the port had to become
The Paulsboro Marine Terminal is owned by the South Jersey Port Corporation, a New Jersey state agency, and was built on reclaimed ground at a former refinery terminal on the river below the city. To hold monopiles, the wharf and the land behind it had to be engineered for loads most ports never see: single pieces weighing on the order of a couple thousand tons each. Preparing that site took years and a good deal of public money.
Financing ran in part through the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, which means the paper trail sits with public agencies you can actually read. If you want to know what a port rebuilt for offshore wind costs and what it promises, the port corporation's board materials and the authority's announcements are the documents to pull, not a developer's glossy page.
III.How steady the order book is
Here is the hard part, and the reason to hedge. Offshore wind in the Mid-Atlantic has been through a rough stretch. In late 2023 the developer Orsted cancelled its Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 projects off New Jersey, which were among the nearest large buyers for this kind of steel, and other projects since have been delayed, repriced, or sent back for fresh approvals.
A monopile plant lives or dies by its order book, and an order book depends on projects reaching financial close and placing firm orders. When a project is cancelled, the foundations it would have needed simply do not get rolled. The plant is real and the river work is real, but whether the line runs full next year rests on decisions made in board rooms and state offices, not on the Delaware.
IV.Worth watching this month
1. Watch the South Jersey Port Corporation board agendas for any Paulsboro terminal lease or activity items, which are public and hint at whether the berth is busy.
2. Watch the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for results of the next offshore wind solicitation, since new awards are what eventually turn into steel orders.
3. Watch the New Jersey Economic Development Authority for any revised commitment tied to the Paulsboro site, routine most quarters but worth a note.
4. Watch PJM interconnection news for Mid-Atlantic offshore wind, because a project that cannot connect to the grid will not order foundations.
5. Watch EEW's own statements about hiring or layoffs at Paulsboro, the plainest signal of how full that line actually is.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I see these turbines from Philadelphia?
- No. The turbines go out to sea off the New Jersey and Delaware coasts, well beyond the city. What is near you is the factory and the port where the steel foundations are made.
- Is the Paulsboro plant the same as the New Jersey Wind Port?
- No, they are different sites. The New Jersey Wind Port is a separate project farther south in Salem County; the Paulsboro Marine Terminal is where the monopiles are fabricated on the Delaware.
- Does Philadelphia's electricity come from this offshore wind?
- Not directly today. Most Mid-Atlantic offshore wind is contracted to serve New Jersey or other states, though it all feeds the same PJM grid that the Philadelphia region draws from.
- What is a monopile, plainly?
- It is a single large steel tube driven into the seabed as the foundation for one turbine. Think of a very long, very thick pipe that the whole machine stands on.
Sources on the bench
South Jersey Port Corporation (New Jersey state port agency) The public owner of the Paulsboro Marine Terminal; board materials and terminal information. · southjerseyport.com
New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (state agency, .gov) Runs New Jersey's offshore wind solicitations and posts the awards that become future orders. · www.nj.gov/bpu
PJM Interconnection (regional grid operator) The grid operator for the Philadelphia area and New Jersey; tracks interconnection of offshore wind. · www.pjm.com
New Jersey Economic Development Authority (state financing agency) Announcements on state support for the Paulsboro site and wind manufacturing. · www.njeda.com
EEW Group (manufacturer parent company) Company pages covering the American Offshore Structures arm that rolls the monopiles at Paulsboro. · eew-group.com