US halts offshore wind projects, citing national security concerns

The Trump administration has suspended leases on all large US offshore wind projects, citing national security concerns, in a fresh attack on the sector.

The government announced it was immediately pausing leases on five offshore wind farms under construction, saying they were “expensive, unreliable, heavily subsidised projects”.

In a major setback for developers of the farms including Denmark’s Ørsted, interior secretary Doug Burgum said in a post on X that President Donald Trump was “bringing back common sense to energy policy and putting security FIRST!”

Trump has previously described wind power as the “worst” and “most expensive” form of energy and as president has taken several steps to thwart projects.

The Department of the Interior said Monday’s move followed “national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently classified reports”.

It also pointed to what it claimed were “inherent” risks of radar interference from offshore wind turbines that could obscure “legitimate moving targets”.

The interior department said the pause to offshore wind projects would give the government “time to work with leaseholders and state partners to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects”.

The five wind farms affected by the department’s announcement include Ørsted’s Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind, and Equinor’s Empire Wind.

The others are Dominion Energy’s $11.3bn Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind and Vineyard Wind, a project being developed by Iberdrola’s Avangrid subsidiary and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.

Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, on Monday evening said its Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects off the north-east coast of the US were complying with 90-day suspension orders they had received from the interior department. Revolution Wind had been due to start generating electricity in January.

The Danish company said the projects had been scrutinised for any national security impacts as part of a US permit process.

It added it was evaluating “all options to resolve the matter”, including “potential legal proceedings”.

The company successfully petitioned a judge to enable it to resume work on Revolution Wind after the White House issued a so-called stop-work order to the project in August.

Ørsted tapped shareholders for fresh equity via a $9bn rights issue in October after Trump’s hostility to the sector stymied its efforts to sell a stake in Sunrise Wind to an investor.

Shares in Ørsted, which is listed in Copenhagen, closed down almost 13 per cent on Monday while those of wind turbine maker Vestas fell almost 3 per cent.

Equinor said it was evaluating the US suspension order and seeking “further information from the federal government”.

Dominion Energy said suspending Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind for any length of time would threaten the reliability of the power grid as well as thousands of jobs and risked pushing up energy costs.

“CVOW is American owned and benefits all of our Virginia customers,” it added.

The project was thought to be in a favourable position because of its advanced stage of construction and the advocacy of the state’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin.

US-listed Dominion Energy’s stock fell almost 4 per cent.

Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, said Trump’s “obsession with killing offshore wind projects is unhinged, irrational and unjustified”.

He added the administration’s latest move was a “backwards step that will drive energy bills even higher. It will kill good union jobs, spike energy costs and put our grid at risk”.

In recent weeks, the government’s push against offshore wind encountered a setback when a Massachusetts district court struck down a ban on issuing new permits for the sector after 17 states and clean energy groups sued the government.

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