Revolution Wind Shut Down Again, Along with Other Projects

The Trump administration suspended leases Dec. 22 for five large offshore wind projects, including targeting the Revolution Wind project for a second time in five months.

Four of the projects are in New England—Revolution Wind, Sunrise Wind, Vineyard Wind 1, and Empire Wind 1—with Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Wind also impacted.

Those projects will collectively generate enough electricity to power almost 2.7 million homes annually.

U.S. Department of the Interior officials said the leases were suspended based on claims that the wind turbines caused radar interference.

The department said the pause will give federal agencies “time to work with leaseholders and state partners to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects.”

Regional Impact

Located off Block Island, Revolution Wind was 80% complete when it was first shut down by an Aug. 22 Bureau of Ocean Management stop-work order that cited “national security concerns.”

Work on the the $6.2 billion, 704 megawatt project resumed in September after a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in response to a lawsuit filed by project developer Ørsted.

Half of Vineyard Wind’s 62 turbines, located off Massachusetts, were producing power when the project’s leases were suspended in December.

“Unpredictable risks and threats to resources will increase costs to consumers and undermine the region’s economy.”

ISO New England

In a statement, regional grid operator ISO New England noted that Vineyard was supplying hundreds of megawatts of electricity, while it anticipated that Revolution Wind will go online in 2026.

“Beyond increasing risk to reliability, delays of new generating resources also will adversely affect New England’s economy and industrial growth, including potential future data centers,” the statement read.

“Unpredictable risks and threats to resources—regardless of technology—that have made significant capital investments, secured necessary permits, and are close to completion will stifle future investments, increase costs to consumers, and undermine the power grid’s reliability and the region’s economy now and in the future.”

‘Vital Projects’

Ørsted filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Jan. 1 challenging the latest shutdown, with Equinor, the developer of Empire Wind, doing the same the following day.

Ørsted officials had said the August stop work order cost Revolution Wind more than $2 million a day and that canceling the project would incur over $1 billion in additional costs.

On Christmas Eve, Gov. Ned Lamont and the governors of New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island sent a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum calling for the immediate lifting of the stop work orders.

“Our states’ economies are dependent on the power that these projects will generate.”

“These projects have already been subject to extensive federal review, including an assessment that expressly addressed national security considerations,” the letter read.

“Neither the Department of the Interior, BOEM, nor any other federal agency, including the Department of Defense, informed our respective states of any purportedly new risk prior to these suspensions nor did they account for our states’ substantial reliance interests—our states’ economies are dependent on the power that these projects will generate—in these vital projects that already have undergone many federal approvals, including from the DoD.

“The absence of such notice undermines our ability to plan effectively and violates basic principles of cooperative federalism.”