With Vineyard Wind ruling, four of five offshore wind projects win relief from Trump freeze

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Dive Temporary:

• The 800-MW Winery Wind challenge offshore Massachusetts can resume building, a federal decide dominated Tuesday, in one other setback to the Trump administration’s efforts to halt offshore wind improvement with a Dec. 22 cease work order.
• Winery Wind is the fourth offshore wind project to receive an injunction towards the cease work orders, which cited labeled nationwide safety considerations as the explanation for the pause. A fifth case is pending.
• Winery Wind mentioned after the order was issued, it “repeatedly” reached out to seek advice from the related authorities companies “to forge a path ahead with out litigation,” however that these companies “refused to debate the supposedly new details about nationwide safety impacts or what Winery Wind would possibly do to mitigate them.”

Dive Perception:

Winery Wind’s developer says the challenge is 95% full and partially operational – already delivering energy to the grid. In its cease work order to the challenge, the Bureau of Ocean Vitality Administration gave its developers permission to proceed actions needed for energy technology however no more building. 

Choose Brian Murphy with the U.S. District Court docket for the District of Massachusetts granted Winery Wind a keep towards the cease work order throughout a Tuesday listening to. The preliminary injunction follows related rulings in circumstances introduced by Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, Revolution Wind and Empire Wind. Dawn Wind continues to be awaiting a choice in courtroom.

The Division of the Inside, which oversees the Bureau of Ocean Vitality Administration, said at the time that last month’s stop work order was prompted by “nationwide safety dangers” recognized in “not too long ago accomplished labeled studies.”

Inside mentioned the pause would give it, together with the Protection Division and different related authorities companies, “time to work with leaseholders and state companions to evaluate the potential for mitigating the nationwide safety dangers posed by these initiatives.”

Dominion Vitality, which is constructing the two.6 GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, also accused the government of refusing to reveal the character of the nationwide safety considerations behind the cease work order. 

Winery Wind mentioned in a courtroom submitting that the cease work order was costing it $2 million a day in direct and oblique prices and it was in peril of lacking an essential building window if it didn’t obtain aid by Friday. 

“The remaining building requires a specialised vessel that’s accessible solely till March 31, 2026,” Winery Wind mentioned, and if an order had come any later than Jan. 30, there wouldn’t have been “ample time to finish the Mission earlier than the vessel departs.”

“The lack to well timed full building of the Mission in flip jeopardizes the revenues and financing needed for the Mission to stay viable, with ensuing monetary penalties from which Winery Wind seemingly couldn’t get better,” it mentioned.

Winery Wind is a three way partnership between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Companions being developed offshore Massachusetts. On the time of the cease work order, it was able to producing 572 MW and had been delivering energy to the state for nearly a yr, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, D, mentioned in a Dec. 22 statement. 

Winery Wind had additionally objected to the Trump administration’s refusal to permit the challenge to put in substitute blades on 10 already constructed towers which stood naked on the time of the cease work order, posing a security danger from components like lightning strikes, the challenge alleged. Winery Wind was topic to controversy in July 2024 after a blade failed and detached from its turbine, scattering fiberglass within the ocean that washed up on Nantucket seashores.

In a Jan. 27 release following Murphy’s ruling, Winery Wind mentioned, “Because the authorized course of proceeds, Winery Wind will proceed to work with the Administration to grasp the issues raised within the Order.”