Ørsted sues Trump over stop-work order on wind farm

Revolution Wind, a JV between Ørsted and a consortium led by Skyborn Renewables, itself a Global Infrastructure Partners company, has filed a complaint with the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

It is challenging Trump’s stop-work order, believing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) ‘lacked legal authority’ for the order and its basis ‘violated applicable law’.

”Revolution Wind secured all required federal and state permits in 2023, following reviews that began more than nine years ago,” says the JV statement. “Federal reviews and approvals included the US Department of Defense, US Coast Guard, US Army Corps of Engineers, National Marine Fisheries Service, and several other agencies. Revolution Wind has spent and committed billions of dollars in reliance upon this fulsome review process.

“Revolution Wind is set to deliver 704MW and has already installed 100% of offshore foundations and approximately 70% of wind turbines for the project. Export cable installation is nearly complete, as is 90% of the onshore substation.”

Separately, US offshore energy agency Oceantic Network has reacted with anger to Donald Trump’s latest actions to hamper the national offshore wind market.

That is the newly announced intention of the Trump administration to remand permits and approvals for several federally permitted offshore wind projects off the coast of Massachusetts.

“The unlawful and escalating actions by the Trump administration against fully permitted offshore wind projects up and down the East Coast represent one of the largest, economically devastating assaults on U.S. workers, businesses, and energy in generations,” said Sam Salustro, SVP policy & market strategy, Oceantic Network.

A sector under threat

Salustro said that halting construction and revoking permits on approved projects after years of thorough agency review will raise electricity prices for millions across the country, jeopardise billions of dollars in private investment, threaten national shipbuilding, steel and manufacturing supply chains.

“The Trump administration is singling out an American energy industry, undermining a 40-state, $25 billion domestic supply chain while holding American business investments hostage,” he said.

“This is from a political playbook that should make every industry worry whether they will be targeted by this administration or the next. We call on federal leaders to halt this targeted attack and restore certainty and predictability to our energy industry and the thousands ready to get back to work.”

Back in June, the Trump administration ended preferential treatment for what it calls ”unreliable subsidy-dependent renewables” – namely wind and solar energy.

This followed the signing of Executive Order 14315 ‘Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign-Controlled Energy Sources’ and the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act by the US Department of the Interior.

These policies remove the long-standing right-of-way and capacity fee discounts for existing and future wind and solar projects bringing to an end to years of subsidies for renewable energy development.