In the ongoing struggle over the offshore wind industry in the United States, the Danish energy company Orsted has won the latest round, with a federal judge issuing a preliminary injunction on Monday allowing construction to resume on its Revolution Wind farm.
Revolution Wind, a 65-turbine installation situated in federal waters on the outer continental shelf adjacent to the 12-turbine South Fork Wind farm around 35 miles off Montauk Point, was the subject of an Aug. 7 stop-work order issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s acting director. The “director’s order” ordered a halt to “all ongoing activities related to the Revolution Wind project on the outer continental shelf to allow time for it to address concerns that have arisen during the review that the department is undertaking.”
Construction of Revolution Wind, which is jointly owned by Orsted and Skyborn Renewables, was 80-percent completed at the time of the order halting it, with all of its foundations and 45 of 65 turbines installed.
Revolution Wind’s developers filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the stop-work order, followed by a request for a preliminary injunction. On Monday, Judge Royce Lamberth issued the preliminary injunction.
“Revolution Wind has demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of its underlying claims,” he wrote, “it is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction, the balance of the equities is in its favor, and maintaining the status quo by granting the injunction is in the public interest.” The defendants are enjoined from enforcing the stop-work order, he wrote.
Construction will resume “as soon as possible,” according to a statement Orsted issued on Monday. Revolution Wind “will continue to seek to work collaboratively with the U.S. administration and other stakeholders toward a prompt resolution.”
The stop-work order was part of a concerted effort by the Trump administration to kill the nascent domestic industry. In July, the federal Interior Department announced the end of what it called “preferential treatment for unreliable, subsidy-dependent wind and solar energy,” and in August launched investigations into bird deaths caused by wind farms. BOEM also rescinded regulations outlining renewable energy lease sales last month.
The bureau referred to “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,” but provided no details as to how a wind farm would jeopardize those interests.
The developers say that South Fork Wind, which sends electricity to the South Fork via a transmission cable making landfall in Wainscott, can generate electricity sufficient to power around 70,000 average-size houses, while Revolution Wind, under 20-year power purchase agreements, is to send to Connecticut and Rhode Island electricity equivalent to power more than 350,000 residences.
