Meeting New Jersey's Energy Needs

Rowan conference focuses on pragmatic solutions to New Jersey's energy needs 

Powering a Resilient Energy Future: Developing New Jersey’s Energy Workforce in a Changing Landscape, the fifth major energy conference hosted by the Sweeney Center for Public Policy, 

The full six-hour video of the conference can be viewed at Sweeney Center: Energy Conference 9/16/25

“Extensive changes in federal energy policy, soaring demand and rising electricity prices have upended longterm planning assumptions about energy supply and associated workforce needs for utility leaders, energy executives, government policymakers and workforce development organizations,” said Sweeney Center Director Mark Magyar. “Pragmatic solutions are needed to navigate these changes and power a resilient energy future for New Jersey,

Board of Public Utilities President Christine Guhl-Sadovy and Economic Development Authority CEO Tim Sullivan reaffirmed New Jersey's commitment to be a national leader in both offshore wind development and manufacturing at the Sweeney Center's February 21 conference, Moving Forward on Offshore Wind: New Challenges, New Competition,

Representatives of Leading Light Wind, Attentive Energy and Atlantic Shores - the three companies with offshore wind contracts to provide power to New Jersey - discussed new challenges facing the industry. Speakers from Vineyard Wind, the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the nation, and the American Clean Power Association provided a national perspective.

The new BPU contracts will require New Jersey offshore wind providers to use monopiles manufactured at the Paulsboro Marine Terminal and towers built at the New Jersey Wind Port in Salem County.

Sweeney Center study benchmarked NJ against other states

The future of the Paulsboro manufacturing facility was a focal point of Benchmarking New Jersey's Offshore Wind Initiatives, a study authored by Sweeney Center Director Mark Magyar last June. 

New Jersey remains in the forefront of U.S. offshore wind development with ambitious energy production goals and major investments in supply chain and port infrastructure, but the future of its first-in-the nation monopile manufacturing facility had been clouded by Orsted's financial problems and retrenchment.

Center conference highlights hydrogen and nuclear energy  

February's offshore wind conference was the third hosted by the Sweeney Center on green energy issues.

The Road to Zero Emissions: The Future of Hydrogen and Nuclear Energy in New Jersey was the focus of a Sweeney Center conference last October. 

Ralph LaRossa, Michael J. Renna and Stephen D. Weshoven - the President/CEOs of PSEG, South Jersey Industries and New Jersey Resources Corporation - discussed New Jersey's clean energy challenges, while Colin O'Meara, who heads the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogren Hub, talked about the federal grant MACH2 received to develop green hydrogen in the South Jersey, Philadelphia and Delaware region.

Last May, the Sweeney Center hosted Offshore Wind Technology in New Jersey: Sustainability, Emerging Markets and Technology, where Robert Angelo-Assaro and Shawn LaTourette, commissioners of the NJ Department of Labor & Workforce Development and Department of Environmental Protection, laid out New Jersey's offshore wind goals.