This audio is automatically generated. Please let us know if you have any comments.
Dive brief:
- The 700 MW Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island, a subsidiary of Ørsted, “now faces business-level threats again” because of a blanket stop-work order the Trump administration has levied against the offshore wind industry, lawyers for the project argued in a motion Friday seeking an injunction against the order.
- More than $5 billion has been spent on the project so far, and the stop-work order is estimated to cost the project at least $1.44 million per day, according to the motion. The project is a 50/50 joint venture between Ørsted and Global Infrastructure Partners’ Skyborn Renewables.
- The 810 MW Empire Wind 1 project off the coast of New York also filed a complaint against the order on Friday. Equinor, developer of Empire Wind he said in a statement that the order is “unlawful and threatens the progress of ongoing work with significant implications for the project.”
Diving knowledge:
The Interior Department announced in December that it was pausing leases for “all large-scale offshore wind projects under construction” in the United States because of national security risks.
In its injunction motion, Revolution Wind argued that the Office of Ocean Energy Management already reviewed the project’s national security impacts and said the Department of Defense, the US Coast Guard and the Federal Aviation Administration “extensively reviewed” the project “at every stage of the regulatory process.”
“In November 2024, Revolution Wind entered into a mitigation agreement with [DOD] and the Air Force to address national security risks and to mitigate potential adverse effects on military operations and readiness, including the protection of military radar systems,” the motion said.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in December that the projects could pose risks due to “the rapid evolution of relevant adversarial technologies” and cited national security risks “identified by [Department of Defense] in recently completed classified reports”.
However, in a publish to X On the decision, Burgum criticized the projects from an unrelated perspective, saying that “ONE natural gas pipeline supplies as much power as these 5 projects COMBINED,” as well as calling offshore wind “expensive, unreliable” and “heavily subsidized.”
The stop-work order is affecting five large offshore wind farms under development in federal waters off the East Coast: the largest U.S. project, the 2.6 GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind; the 800 MW Vineyard Wind 1 off the coast of Massachusetts; Wind of the Revolution; and Empire Wind 1 and the 924 MW Sunrise Wind, both off the coast of New York.
Empire Wind said in its complaint that the order represented an “arbitrary and capricious change of position without adequate explanation or recognition of Empire Wind’s important trust interests” and noted that the project had already incurred about $200 million in delay costs as of April of last year, when the Trump administration. issued a directed stop work order against
Empire Wind argued that the government “does not have unfettered discretion to stop work on an offshore lease” and that the terms of the contract specify that “advance notice will ordinarily be given before a suspension or evacuation is required.”
“These limitations give Empire Wind hope that its lawful activities can continue and that the [Construction and Operations Plan] The approval and lease will continue to be effective absent the exercise of this limited authority by the government,” Empire Wind said.
