The Trump administration has halted the Revolution Wind offshore project, located on the federally-owned Outer Continental Shelf. According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the work stop order was issued to address “concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States and prevention of interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas.” Revolution Wind is a 704-megawatt, 65-turbine wind project located 15 miles south of Rhode Island’s Point Judith port, 32 miles southeast of the Connecticut coast and 12 miles southwest of Martha’s Vineyard. Construction began on Revolution Wind in 2023, with the installation of the first offshore wind turbine in September 2024. The project, which is expected to be fully operational next year, is 80% complete with 45 of 65 wind turbines installed. This is the second major work stoppage on an offfshore wind farm that the Trump administration has issued, the first of which was New York’s Empire Wind project.
The Empire Wind project was paused in April but was later allowed to resume construction due to a supposed deal between the Trump administration and N.Y. Governor Kathy Hochul, which she denies, to allow permits for two natural gas pipelines intended to provide gas to New York and the New England states. The Trump administration also pulled a permit for a large pending New Jersey offshore wind project in March — the Atlantic Shores wind farm. These projects were part of President Biden’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 to meet commitments made under the UN’s Paris Climate Agreement.
Offshore wind is very expensive, so offshore wind developers contract with utilities ahead of the project to ensure adequate revenues are obtained for the power. For Revolution Wind, the project was contracted under 20-year power-purchase agreements to utilities in Massachusetts (304 megawatts) and Rhode Island (400 megawatts). While certain forecasters, such as Lazard, find intermittent onshore wind and solar to be cheaper than other traditional technologies, their forecasts do not factor in the system costs of offshore wind power. The needed backup power source is actually redundant in that a reliable coal, gas, or nuclear generator can supply enough power without the need for wind or solar power, as the cartoon below depicts. Wind and solar also benefit from far more subsidies than other power sources, which partially shifts their high costs to taxpayers rather than directly to customers’ electricity bills.
The cost of offshore wind power is far more than the cost of onshore wind. Its costs are exorbitant as developers must handle mounting the wind turbines in rough ocean waters, running extensive cables underground to bring the power to the coast, and maintaining the turbines in turbulent ocean waters that makes their operating and maintenance cost almost five times that of onshore wind. Empire Wind, for example, was awarded contracts with a weighted average all-in development cost over the life of the contracts of $150.15 per megawatt-hour — three times the cost of dispatchable and reliable natural gas generation.
In its Annual Energy Outlook 2025, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates the levelized generating costs of new offshore wind at $88.16 per megawatt hour. According to the EIA, offshore wind has the highest cost of all of EIA’s stated generating technologies — three times the cost of onshore wind. According to Carboncredits.com: “over the past two years, the average cost of offshore wind projects has risen by 30% to 40%, reaching $230 per megawatt hour.”
In North Carolina, Duke Energy announced it is not moving forward with offshore wind energy after determining proposals from three developers are more expensive than solar panels and expensive battery storage while also producing the same amount of energy. Duke compared the cost of building 2,400 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035, against the cost of building 3,576 megawatts of solar panels and 3,440 megawatts of battery storage.
Orsted in Trouble
Investors are also worried about the threat of a stop-work order being issued to Orsted’s Sunrise Wind project off the coast of New York. Sunrise Wind was expected to be operational in 2026, but the project’s commissioning has been delayed into the second half of 2027. Orsted is rushing to fund the 924-megawatt Sunrise Wind project and shore up another 8.1 gigawatts of planned capacity through 2027. On August 11, 2025, Orsted notified the market it plans a massive rights issue worth up to $9.4 billion to aid its offshore U.S. operations, which amounts to almost 50% of Orsted’s market cap. Danish taxpayers are already paying for a significant portion of its operations because the government owns a controlling 50.1% stake.
The work stoppage on the Revolution Wind project is not new in the world of politics, as a president can deem a project not in the nation’s best interests. Former Presidents Obama and Biden had previously nixed the Keystone XL pipeline and Biden placed a major “pause” on his Energy Department’s approval of permits for new liquified natural gas (LNG) export facilities. In 2015, the Obama administration determined that the Keystone XL Pipeline would not serve the national interest of the United States. For the same reason, Biden revoked the presidential permit for Keystone XL on his first day in office, when the pipeline was already completed at the border. Biden’s pause on LNG export permit approvals caused LNG developers’ costs to increase and their timelines to be forfeited, allowing other countries to capture long-term contracts and expand their LNG infrastructure.
Offshore Wind Cancellations
Over a year ago, Danish wind developer Orsted canceled its Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 projects off the New Jersey shore, citing rising interest rates, high inflation, and supply chain bottlenecks. The projects would have added about 2.2 gigawatts of intermittent power to the New Jersey grid. Orsted was able to write off $4 billion, primarily due to the cancellation of these two large offshore wind projects. Earlier, in January 2024, Orsted withdrew from commitments to the Maryland Public Service Commission to build the Skipjack 1 and 2 projects, totaling 966 megawatts.
Other offshore wind projects were also rejected as their costs soared. In July 2023, Rhode Island Energy announced it was rejecting the bid from Revolution Wind 2, declaring that higher interest rates, increased costs of capital, supply chain expenses, and uncertainty over federal tax credits made it unattractive to ratepayers. Rhode Island Energy told state regulators the second Revolution Wind project was not “commercially viable,” with estimates stating that the wind project would cost ratepayers more than $3 billion over the lifetime of the contract. In late 2023, the developer of the 20-megawatt Icebreaker Wind project on the Ohio coast of Lake Erie halted the project amid rising costs and loss of funding.
Offshore Wind Lease Areas
Another offshore wind project to supply power to Massachusetts and Rhode Island, SouthCoast Wind, has been delayed. With a construction date to begin in 2026, SouthCoast Wind had received its requisite environmental and construction plan approvals under the Biden administration. The town of Nantucket, however, has filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in D.C. against the federal agencies that approved the SouthCoast Wind project, contending that the environmental review of the project was flawed. The Biden administration also approved the New England Wind project, which was originally set to begin construction this year. With President Trump’s offshore wind executive order, there is substantial uncertainty regarding the projects’ future.
The Town of Ocean City, Maryland, has been against US Wind’s 114-turbine wind farm, 10.7 miles off the coast of Ocean City in federal waters of the Atlantic Ocean, since the project’s inception. It has found errors in the Maryland Department of the Environment’s permitting process in that the agency advertised a state appeals process for those wishing to challenge the final permit for the facility, instead of a federal appeals process. The Town of Ocean City and Worcester County have filed a lawsuit against the government, accusing it of fast-tracking the permits without proper review or a correct legal process. Ocean City is hoping the Trump administration will intervene and stop the project.
Analysis
Offshore wind is having a tough time operating under the Trump administration, as displayed by its stoppage of the Revolution Wind project. According to the EIA, offshore wind is more expensive than other generating technologies. It also has a substantial environmental impact given its effect on birds, bats, and marine species, which opens projects up to legal challenges on environmental grounds.
Stalling offshore wind facilities makes sense in isolation, however, concerns arise when considering the consequences this move could pose for future energy projects. Similarly to what the Obama and Biden administrations did for the Keystone XL pipeline and LNG exports, a new administration could revoke the permits of future projects. To avoid this political seesawing, the Trump administration should engage Congress in developing legislation that provides a path forward for the optimal use of federal lands and waters in energy production, avoiding the political favoritism for “green” technologies that occurred under Obama and Biden.
For inquiries, please contact wrampe@ierdc.org.
