The drama continues: Offshore Wind Builders Take on Trump Admin in Court
In a move that’s got the renewable energy world buzzing, three offshore wind builders have taken the Trump administration to court after five massive projects worth a combined $25 billion were suddenly halted on December 22.
The projects in question, worth a whopping 6 gigawatts of electricity, were halted due to the administration’s claims that they pose a national security risk. But the wind builders are fighting back, citing the fact that they’ve already invested heavily in the projects and are now facing financial losses.
Ørsted and Equinor, the companies behind the 704-megawatt Revolution Wind and the 2-gigawatt Empire Wind, respectively, filed lawsuits on Thursday and Friday last week. Dominion Energy, which is building a 2.6-gigawatt farm off the coast of Virginia, filed its own lawsuit on December 23.
The halt is particularly egregious, considering that Revolution Wind is already nearly 90% complete, Empire Wind and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind are about 60% complete, and Dominion Energy is racking up losses to the tune of $5 million per day. I mean, that’s a serious hit to the bottom line.
Avangrid, which is working on Winery Wind 1, hasn’t filed a lawsuit yet, but almost half of the project is already operational. Interestingly, Avangrid has been working with the federal government to address concerns about wind turbines interfering with radar operations.
So, what’s the issue with wind turbines and radar, you ask? Well, wind turbines’ whirling blades can indeed stymie radar methods, but researchers have been working to mitigate the problem for over a decade. It’s not a straightforward issue, and I’m not even going to try to simplify it.
In fact, selecting the exact site for wind power projects is one of the best ways to alleviate interference. And, as it turns out, the government and private companies have been exploring solutions to this problem for a while now.
Newer radar systems can filter out the noise that wind farms produce using adaptive processing algorithms, and wind farms can always curtailing operations when requested by the Pentagon, according to Rand Corporation senior engineer Nicholas O’Donoughue.
As you may recall, the Trump administration halted approvals for new offshore wind projects last year, as well as pausing work on Empire Wind and Revolution Wind. The latter restarted after New York State negotiated with the Trump administration, while a federal judge struck down the cease work order for Revolution Wind.
Now, it’s up to the courts to decide whether the Trump administration’s claims of national security concerns hold up. Will they continue to stall these massive projects, or will the wind builders be able to get back to building? Only time will tell.
