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Feds cast cloud over SouthCoast Wind project

September 12, 2025 — The future is uncertain for SouthCoast Wind, a planned wind farm south of the islands that would serve Rhode Island and Massachusetts via power cables routed under the Sakonnet River to Brayton Point in Fall River.

Earlier this month, officials from the United States Department of the Interior issued a filing in a Washington, DC court noting that agency officials intend “to reconsider” approval of the project. The news comes just weeks after the Trump Administration ordered work halted on Revolution Wind, another farm off the coast of Rhode Island that was 80 percent built out when work was ordered to stop.

The Sept. 2 filing was associated with a civil suit brought by Nantucket against Southcoast Wind, the federal Department of the Interior and the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). Filings also note that Interior officials seek a “voluntary remand” of previous federal approvals by this coming Thursday, Sept. 18.

Southcoast Wind, a 2.4-gigawatt farm that company officials said would power more than 800,000 homes in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, is currently under review by the BOEM following the Biden administration’s approval late last year of 127,000-acre ocean lease area about 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and 23 miles south of Nantucket.

The plan has always been to connect electric cables from the site through federal and state waters, including the Sakonnet River, and eventually to an electrical substation at Brayton Point in Somerset, where it would link to the regional electric grid.

Read the full article at East Bay RI

Could Revolution Wind get back to work? Burgum comments suggest anything is possible.

September 11, 2025 — A week after Gov. Dan McKee asked to meet with President Donald Trump over the administration’s halt to the Revolution Wind project, he’s still waiting for an answer.

But U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is suggesting the paused project might not be dead in the water after all. In an interview on CNBC Wednesday, Burgum, whose office oversees federal permits for offshore wind projects, indicated the administration was open to letting work resume on the 65-turbine project.

Read the full article at Yahoo News!

How New England is handling Trump’s offshore wind assault

September 10, 2025 — President Donald Trump’s war on offshore wind power is clobbering New England, and officials there are warning of future grid reliability problems. In this new energy reality, though, many states in the region say they will try their best to muddle through.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has stunned states and industry alike with a whirlwind of actions, highlighted by halting a nearly complete project off Rhode Island’s coast — Revolution Wind — and seeking to revoke a permit for a Massachusetts project. Other crucial projects in the region have been caught up in a temporary pause on leases.

In a recent Cabinet meeting, Trump reiterated his hatred of wind. “We’re not allowing any windmills to go up,” he said. “They’re ruining our country.”

Read the full article at E&E News

Ørsted and Iberdrola Are Trying to Save U.S. Offshore Wind Investments

September 9, 2025 — Two major offshore wind developers,  Ørsted and Iberdrola, have efforts underway to save their offshore wind projects in the United States. The companies are reportedly trying to win over the Trump administration, which opposes offshore wind energy, by emphasizing the larger investments in the United States.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Bloomberg reports, confirmed that the administration is “actively engaged in discussions” with Ørsted over the future of the Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut. According to the reports, Wright, during a presentation at the Council of Foreign Relations, confirmed that there is “a very active dialogue,” saying the issues of the wind farm were being “worked and discussed.”

Last month, the Trump administration issued a stop work order for the project, which Ørsted said is 80 percent installed. The company highlighted its large investment, saying that all of the foundations for the 704 MW wind farm are installed and that 45 out of the 65 wind turbines have also been installed. The export cabling and the onshore power substation are nearly complete.

Ørsted filed a lawsuit challenging the legal authority to suspend the project, calling it a necessary step. The company, however, also said it was continuing to seek a resolution with the administration.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

How many lawsuits does it take to restart Revolution Wind? More than one.

September 8, 2025 — Hours before a federal judge in Boston was set to hear arguments on the Trump administration’s executive order stopping offshore wind reviews, two separate lawsuits seeking to reverse the recent stop work order on nearly completed Revolution Wind project were announced Thursday.

Revolution Wind, a joint venture between Ørsted and a consortium led by Skyborn Renewables, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. challenging the stop work order issued Aug. 22 by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The multibillion dollar project was 80% complete and scheduled to begin delivering 704 megawatts of power to 350,000 homes across Rhode Island and Connecticut starting in mid-2026.

Meaghan Wims, an Ørsted spokeswoman, said the company will continue to seek to work collaboratively with the Trump administration and other stakeholders but believed the federal government lacked legal authority for the stop work order. All required federal and state permits for the 65-turbine wind farm in Rhode Island Sound were secured in 2023 after a review process that lasted seven years.

“The project is facing substantial harm from continuation of the stop-work order, and as a result, litigation is a necessary step,” Wims said.

Soon after Ørsted and Skyborn Renewables filed their lawsuit, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha informed reporters of his intention to file a lawsuit with his Connecticut counterpart seeking to reverse the Trump administration’s decision. The lawsuit was filed Thursday afternoon in the U.S. District of Rhode Island in Providence.

“We have begun and built an industry here in Rhode Island that can continue to grow and provide jobs to Rhode Islanders and build our economy,” Attorney General Peter Neronha told reporters at a morning press conference in his Providence office. “We’re on the cusp of building that economy, and the president stopped it unlawfully.”

Read the full article at Rhode Island Current

States and developer sue the Trump administration for halting work on New England offshore wind farm

September 5, 2025 — Connecticut, Rhode Island and the developer of an offshore wind farm that would power 350,000 homes in the two states said Thursday that they’re suing the Trump administration for stopping the nearly completed project.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha accused President Donald Trump of waging an “all-out assault” on the wind energy industry. The states’ lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, describes the Revolution Wind project as a “cornerstone” of their clean energy future, abruptly halted by federal officials without “statutory authority, regulatory justification or factual basis.”

Danish energy company Orsted filed a separate suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., also arguing that the administration lacks the legal authority to block the Revolution Wind project. Orsted said it would seek a preliminary injunction that would allow it to move forward with the project, which is 80% complete, with all underwater foundations and 45 of 65 turbines installed.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Orsted’s Revolution Wind sues Trump administration over project halt

September 5, 2025 — Danish offshore wind developer Orsted (ORSTED.CO), and the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut sued the Trump administration on Thursday, alleging its decision to block construction of the nearly finished Revolution Wind project is illegal.

The separate complaints are the latest twist in a saga that started last month when U.S. officials issued a stop-work order to Revolution Wind, citing unspecified national security concerns. The order forced the suspension of a project that was 80% complete with all offshore foundations in place and 45 out of 65 wind turbines installed.

“The stop-work order was issued without statutory authority, lacks any evidentiary basis, and is unlawful,” Revolution Wind said in its complaint against U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and five other federal defendants. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized wind energy as ugly, unreliable, and expensive, and his administration is leaning on multiple federal agencies to rein in wind development.

Critics say Trump’s stance on offshore wind is at odds with his goal to boost energy supplies to power the nation’s ambitions around artificial intelligence, which requires a huge amount of data processing.

Read the full article at Reuters

Orsted Sues Trump Administration in Fight to Restart Its Blocked Wind Farm

September 5, 2025 — Orsted, the Danish renewable energy giant, sued the Trump administration on Thursday, saying the government’s move to halt a nearly finished wind farm off Rhode Island was unlawful and “issued in bad faith.”

The administration last month took the remarkable step of ordering work to stop on Revolution Wind, a $6.2 billion offshore wind farm that was nearly 80 percent complete, as part of a campaign to block wind projects. In a letter to Orsted, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management alluded to national security concerns with the project but did not elaborate.

On Thursday, Revolution Wind LLC, a joint venture between Orsted and Skyborn Renewables, asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the administration from enforcing the stop-work order. The complaint alleges that the order was arbitrary and capricious in part because it appeared to be carried out under political pressure from the White House.

The attorneys general of Connecticut and Rhode Island also said that they would file a separate lawsuit Thursday in the United States District Court for Rhode Island to overturn the stop-work order.

Read the full article at The New York Times

RHODE ISLAND: R.I. Gov. McKee asks to meet with Trump over Revolution Wind project still in limbo

September 4, 2025 — After a dozen days in limbo, state and federal officials keep ramping up the pressure on the Trump administration to let the Revolution Wind project resume. The offshore wind project already under construction south of Rhode Island was put on hold on Aug. 22, leaving workers in the lurch and risking critical energy reliability and climate change mandates.

In a Wednesday letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Gov. Dan McKee outlined the consequences of the stop-work order, while asking for a meeting with President Donald Trump.

“The stop-work order undermines efforts to expand our energy supply, lower costs for families and businesses, and strengthen regional reliability,” McKee wrote to Burgum. “This action puts hundreds of well-paid blue-collar jobs at risk by halting a project that is just steps away from powering more than 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut.”

More than 1,000 union workers have spent much of the last two years building the 65-turbine project, 45 of which have been installed, as well as a pair of substations that will connect the power supply to Rhode Island and Connecticut. The 704 megawatts of nameplate capacity was set to be delivered by mid-2026, and already baked into the long-term plans for meeting Rhode Island’s decarbonization mandates under the state’s 2021 Act on Climate law. It is also critical to regional electrical grid reliability, especially in extreme weather events where fuel supply might be limited.

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current