JERA Nex BP, a joint venture between energy major BP and Japan’s largest utility JERA, has decided to shut down its operations in the US.

The company will also lay off all of its US-based employees in the coming months, as well as stop all investments in its Beacon Wind project offshore Massachusetts, citing unfavourable market conditions.

“The US is a market with significant long-term potential for offshore wind, which we still believe can play a key role in the country’s energy transition. Unfortunately, in the present environment, we see no viable path to the development of our Beacon wind project”, JERA Nex BP said.

However, it will not relinquish the Beacon lease. It will rather wait for “a more favourable moment to resume project development”.

The project was supposed to consist of two separate wind farms located in federal waters between Cape Cod and Long Island.

The project was planned to include up to 155 turbines and two offshore substations, with a potential capacity of over 2.5GW. The electricity generated would have been transmitted to the grid in New York and Connecticut.