Offshore wind developers are suing the Trump administration for halting $25 billion worth of projects

Three offshore wind developers are suing the Trump administration after the Interior Department halted five projects worth a total of $25 billion on December 22. If completed, the projects will generate a total of 6 gigawatts of electricity.

Two lawsuits were filed on Thursday and Friday of last week by Ørsted and Equinor, which are developing the 704-megawatt Revolution Wind and the 2-gigawatt Empire Wind, respectively. Another order was placed on December 23 by Dominion Energy, which is building a 2.6-gigawatt farm off the coast of Virginia.

Revolution Wind is approximately 90% complete, while Empire Wind and Virginia Coastal Wind are both approximately 60% complete. Dominion said it is losing $5 million a day as a result of the downtime.

Avangrid, which is developing Vineyard Wind 1, has not yet filed a lawsuit. Nearly half of this project is currently operational.

The Interior Ministry cited national security concerns in its decision to halt construction on the projects. Although it did not elaborate, the Trump administration may have been referring to the challenges wind turbines pose for radar operations. The Department of Energy had issued a report discussing this security concern and solutions in February 2024.

The rotating blades of wind turbines are known to disrupt radar systems, but researchers in the government and private companies have been working to mitigate the problem for more than a decade.

Careful site selection for wind energy projects is one of the biggest ways to mitigate interference. The Office of Ocean Energy Management is coordinating with the Military Aviation Clearinghouse and Installation Security to “review each proposed offshore wind project on a project-by-project basis and will attempt to address concerns regarding single projects or multiple projects,” according to Vineyard Wind 1’s environmental impact statement.

Newer radar systems can filter out the noise produced by wind farms through adaptive processing algorithms, Nicholas O’Donoghue, a senior engineer at RAND, previously told TechCrunch. Vineyard Wind 1 agreed to help finance radar modifications and scale back operations when asked by the Pentagon, for example.

Earlier last year, the Trump administration halted approvals for new offshore wind projects as well as suspending work on the Empire Wind and Revolution Wind projects. The latest work has resumed after New York state negotiated with the Trump administration, while a federal judge overturned Revolution Wind’s stop-work order.