Latest update on Feb. 2: Trump administration is 0 for 5 after federal judge allows Sunrise Wind to resume construction →
Offshore wind lease status
Interactive map — click on the dots for more information.
South of Martha’s Vineyard
South of Long Island
Gulf of Maine
By sight, the offshore wind industry seems to be moving forward on the East Coast. Gargantuan, bright white turbine towers stand tall against New Bedford’s busy waterfront, and poke above I-95 as cars whiz by over the Thames River in New London. But the future of the industry beyond these active projects is uncertain at best under a hostile Trump administration.
Through executive power, Trump effectively froze new permits for offshore wind in January 2025. That and subsequent orders and actions by federal agencies have empowered opponents to mount even more legal challenges to projects — including some from Nantucket town officials and activists.
The federal government could pause still-pending projects for at least the next three years, leaving New Bedford and New London’s purpose-built marine terminals empty longer term. And in an extreme scenario, the administration could even try to stop the projects that are already under construction — which it did in December 2025.
A federal judge in December 2025 overturned Trump’s wind memo, declaring it unlawful with regards to project permitting. But days later, the Trump administration fulfilled the worst-case scenario envisioned by some industry analysts: it went after the leases of all five under-construction projects.
Massachusetts is still counting on offshore wind to meet its climate goals of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and achieving net-zero emissions (meaning the state offsets or removes as much carbon as it emits) by 2050.
At The Light, we’re closely tracking these large-scale energy projects that stand to impact New Bedford, its workforce, its economy, and its storied fishing industry. Here’s a rundown of New England projects (plus two south of New York) and where they all stand. Many face legal challenges — and are being scrutinized by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who has been tasked with reviewing whether to amend or even terminate approvals to build these projects.
Finished
South Fork Wind
Size: 12 turbines, 130 megawatts, power for up to 70,000 homes in New York
Owner: Orsted
Status: Completed. The project started sending power to New York in December 2023 and achieved full power by March 2024.
Litigation: A Rhode Island group opposed to offshore wind, Green Oceans, sued the federal government in 2024 over its approval of South Fork Wind and another Orsted project, Revolution Wind.
Lease OCS-A 0517: $3,838,288 (that figure also accounts for Revolution Wind)
Cable landing: East Hampton, New York
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Under construction amid suspension
Sunrise Wind
Size: 84 turbines, 924 megawatts, power for 600,000 homes in New York.
Owner: Orsted
Status: The Interior Department suspended the project on Dec. 22, 2025, citing national security concerns. The project sued the federal government in January, and was granted a preliminary injunction on Feb. 2, allowing construction to resume. The project is fully permitted and is in the early stages of offshore construction. As of December 2025, 44 of 84 turbine foundations were installed, as well as the project’s offshore substation.
Challenges: Orsted took more than a half-billion dollar impairment on the project due to supply chain issues and delays. The company expects Sunrise Wind to be operational in 2027.
Lease OCS-A 0487: $3.8 million (that figure also accounts for Revolution Wind)
Cable landing: Long Island, New York
Vineyard Wind 1
Size: 62 turbines, 800 megawatts, power for up to 400,000 homes in Massachusetts
Owner: Avangrid and Vineyard Offshore
Status: With only one turbine left to install at Vineyard Wind, the Interior Department suspended the project on Dec. 22, 2025, citing national security concerns. The project sued the federal government and was granted a preliminary stay on Jan. 27, allowing construction to resume. As of mid-January 2026, 44 of its 62 turbines were operational, sending power to the grid. Under the suspension, the project has been permitted to continue sending power to the Massachusetts grid at its current capacity.
New Bedford’s involvement: The project has employed more than 3,500 people, a mix of part time and full time, union and nonunion, who work offshore and out of New Bedford staging the major turbine components in the port. Vineyard Wind has also paid the state millions in rent to lease the MassCEC terminal.
Litigation and other challenges: The fishing industry and a conservative think tank lost their court cases challenging the federal government's approval of Vineyard Wind. In 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected their petitions. Nantucket-based activist group ACK for Whales has filed petitions with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department, asking the agencies to revoke project permits and approvals. In January, the ACK for Whales sued the federal government over its approval of Vineyard Wind. It could set the stage for a remand of the project’s Construction and Operations Plan (COP) approval — an action taken by the federal government for several offshore wind projects under litigation.
Lease OCS-A 0501: $135,100,000 (includes Vineyard Wind 2 lease)
Cable landing: Barnstable, Massachusetts
Revolution Wind
Size: 65 turbines, 704 megawatts, power up to 350,000 homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island
Owner: Orsted
Status: The Interior Department suspended the project on Dec. 22, 2025, citing national security concerns. The project is suing the federal government over the suspension, and was granted a preliminary injunction on Jan. 12, allowing construction to resume immediately. According to a January court filing, only seven of the project’s 65 turbines remain to be installed.
Challenges: BOEM’s stop-work order on the project cited national security concerns and other “concerns that have arisen” during the project-wide review ordered by Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, wind memo. Delays from the stoppage cost the project millions of dollars per week, according to court filings. The stop-work order is currently stayed.
Litigation: A stop-work order from BOEM, issued on Aug. 22, 2025, was lifted on Sept. 22, 2025, after Orsted, Rhode Island and Connecticut sued the Trump administration and a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction, temporarily halting the order and allowing the project to proceed with construction. A Rhode Island group opposed to offshore wind, Green Oceans, sued the federal government in 2024 over its approval of Revolution Wind and South Fork Wind. The Preservation Society of Newport County, which owns many mansions and properties along Newport’s waterfront, is also suing the federal government over Revolution Wind.
Lease OCS-A 0486: $3,838,288 (that figure also accounts for South Fork Wind)
Cable landing: North Kingstown, Rhode Island
Empire Wind 1
Size: 54 turbines, 810 megawatts, power for 500,000 homes in New York
Owner: Equinor
Status: The Interior Department suspended the project on Dec. 22, 2025, citing national security concerns. The project sued the federal government in January and was granted a preliminary injunction on Jan. 15, allowing construction to resume. After the first suspension, the project resumed construction in May 2025 after the Trump administration lifted its stop work order. In April 2025, the developer was moving rocks on the seafloor to create stable bases for the turbine foundations when the Interior Department ordered a pause to construction, vaguely citing a NOAA report that it refused to release to the public or the developer. As of December 2025, all 54 monopile foundations had been installed. Equinor expects the project to be operational by 2027.
Challenges: Opponents based on Long Island have petitioned the U.S. EPA to rescind the project’s Clean Air Permit, as the agency did recently for a New Jersey project. In 2025, opposition groups sued the federal government over the project; they are asking the Interior Department to reinstate its stop-work order.
Impacts under Trump: Citing Trump’s memorandum freezing offshore wind permitting and ordering a project-wide review, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on April 16, 2025, directed BOEM to order that Empire Wind 1 cease all construction activity “until further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.” The move was celebrated by offshore wind opponents and the fishing industry. But on May 19, 2025, the administration lifted the ban. Equinor executives said the company was losing about $50 million per week under the freeze, and threatened project cancellation if the ban continued much longer.
Lease OCS-A 0512: $42,500,000 (also covered Empire Wind 2, a project developers canceled in 2024)
Cable landing: Brooklyn, New York
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Mostly or fully permitted and pending
New England Wind 1 and 2
Size: Up to 2,600 megawatts, power for 900,000 homes in Massachusetts
Owner: Avangrid
Status: The project is fully permitted at the federal level. It requires a finalized power purchase agreement with Massachusetts utilities, which has been delayed multiple times due to uncertainty created by Trump’s wind memo. The deadline to execute is now June 30.
New Bedford’s involvement: The project plans to house its long-term operations and maintenance hub in New Bedford. Contingent on the project moving forward, the Danish company, Liftra, also plans to establish a crane manufacturing facility in the city.
Challenges: In May 2025, ACK for Whales, Green Oceans, charter fishing groups and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) sued the federal government, asking the court to vacate agency approvals for the project. In response, the federal government in December 2025 asked a federal judge to allow a remand of a key construction approval, which would deal a major blow to the project.
Lease OCS-A 0534, 0561: $135,100,000 (part of the Vineyard Wind 1 lease purchase)
Cable landing: Barnstable, Massachusetts
SouthCoast Wind
Size: Up to 141 turbines, up to 2,400 megawatts, power 840,000 homes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The first phase is 1,200 megawatts.
Owner: Ocean Winds
Status: The project received all of its major federal permits on Jan. 17, 2025, just before Trump took office. However, it still requires a key permit from NOAA Fisheries to incidentally harm marine mammals. It also requires a finalized power purchase agreement with Massachusetts, which has been delayed due to uncertainty created by Trump’s wind memo. In November 2025, Rhode Island, which had planned to purchase some of the project’s power, dropped the plan, leaving only Massachusetts to buy all the electricity produced. The deadline to execute the power purchase contracts is now June 30.
New Bedford’s involvement: In 2029, the project plans to begin staging its turbine components for offshore installation out of New Bedford, but that may be delayed further by federal actions. It also intends to use the city, particularly the Foss terminal, for its operations and maintenance hub.
Impacts under Trump: The project’s parent company wrote down the value of its U.S. offshore wind projects by almost $300 million in early 2025, acknowledging SouthCoast Wind could be delayed by four years under the Trump administration. As long as the memorandum freezing all offshore wind activity continues, the project will be unable to obtain needed approvals, including a NOAA Fisheries permit.
Litigation: The Town of Nantucket sued the Department of the Interior and BOEM in early 2026, requesting that the government “set aside” its record of decision approving SouthCoast Wind. In response, BOEM in September 2025 asked a federal judge to allow the remand of a key approval the agency granted to the project in the final days of the Biden administration. The judge granted the request in November 2025; BOEM could decide to revoke the permit, or approve it with new conditions.
Lease OCS-A 0521: $135,000,000
Cable landing: Somerset and possibly Falmouth, Massachusetts, for the second stage of project construction.
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Not permitted
Beacon Wind
Size: Up to 155 turbines, 2,400 megawatts, power for 850,000 homes in New York
Owner: BP
Status: In October 2025, BP announced it was pulling the plug on the project, stating it saw no “viable path” in “the present environment.” It said it would retain the federal lease and “wait for a more favorable moment to resume project development.”
Impacts under Trump: BP’s reference to “the present environment” appears to refer to the Trump administration’s freeze on wind-power permits. The project has zero out of 11 requisite federal permits, per the government’s permit tracker.
Lease OCS-A 0520: $135,000,000
Cable landing: Queens, New York
Vineyard Wind 2
Size: Up to 1,200 megawatts, power for 650,000 homes
Owner: Vineyard Offshore
Status: The project requires several federal approvals, as well as agreements with state(s) to purchase the project’s power. The project is in limbo after Connecticut declined to join Massachusetts in purchasing 400 megawatts of power.
New Bedford’s involvement: The project plans to house its long-term operations and maintenance hub in New Bedford.
Impacts under Trump: Vineyard Offshore, the project’s parent company, cut 50 positions across three projects in early 2025, citing “recent market uncertainties.”
Lease OCS-A 0522: $135,100,000 (part of Vineyard Wind 1 purchase)
Cable landing: Most likely New London, Connecticut. Alternative landing sites include Westport, Massachusetts, but company officials said at a 2025 public meeting in the town that they do not intend to land the cables in Westport.
Vineyard Mid-Atlantic aka Excelsior Wind
Size: undetermined
Owner: Vineyard Offshore
Status: Aside from requiring major federal permits, the project also needs a contract with New York to purchase its power.
Impacts under Trump: BOEM canceled a series of public meetings to discuss environmental impact studies for the project. Vineyard Offshore cut 50 positions across three projects in early 2025, citing “recent market uncertainties.”
Lease OCS-A 0544: $285,000, 000
Cable landing: Long Island, New York (Jones Beach)
Starboard Wind
Size: About 1,200 megawatts, power for up to 600,000 homes
Owner: Orsted
Status: Aside from requiring major federal permits, the project also needs a contract with New York to purchase its power. It was formerly called Bay State Wind.
Challenges: New England states did not bid on the project during the last solicitation round in 2024. An Orsted spokesperson in early 2025 said the company will continue to evaluate future opportunities for the project.
Lease OCS-A 0500: $281,000
Cable landing: unknown
Gulf of Maine leases
Beyond these projects, two developers bid on four lease areas in the Gulf of Maine, east and northeast of Cape Cod, in October 2024. These projects are far off, in large part because they require floating wind turbines, a technology that needs more time to develop.
Offshore wind will continue in expand in technologically advanced countries.
Trump will put an end to American Exceptionalism.
Massachusetts Failed Wind Turbine History 2025
By 2007, a former Massachusetts state legislator from East Freetown had sold residential wind turbines using renewable energy credits to residents across the state. Parts of the turbines were replaced with cheaper components, leading to failures during mild wind storms. The former state representative was fined by the Massachusetts Attorney General and subsequently moved to Hawaii. It was never revealed how his Freetown house burned to the ground. Residents lost faith in wind turbines.
In 2008, Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi proposed an amendment that would have allowed his friend, a Boston contractor, to place 120 wind turbines in Buzzards Bay. The Oceans Act of 2008 was the first in the nation. The project failed.
Governor Deval Patrick in 2009 declared that by 2020, the state should develop enough wind-generated electricity to power 800,000 homes. At one point, it was revealed that Patrick used the code name Sally Reynolds on emails or sally.reynolds@state.ma.us in the corruption and 8-year conviction trial of House Speaker Sal Dimasi. It has been rumored that the email name was used to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests.
Massachusetts began installing megawatt wind turbines in residential neighborhoods to achieve the goal of 2000 megawatts of land-based wind power by 2020. State and local officials ignored the manufacturer’s noise warnings, resulting in a statewide catastrophic turbine failure. There is less than 100 megawatts today.
In 2018, a former Milton state senator, who was next in line to become the State Senate President, faced more than 100 criminal charges related to alleged corruption during his time in office. After a car crash, he was found dead at his Westport house.
Note # The Milton state senator established Windswept LLC in 2011. He was arrested on a 113-count indictment that includes the RICO Act.
The Governor Maura Healey Administration announced in February 2024 that Massachusetts’ first offshore wind project, Vineyard Wind 1, delivered power for the project’s first phase to the New England electric grid.
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Vineyard Wind would have generated electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts under perfect conditions. Lack of wind or shifting wind, parasitic power loss, maintenance, lightning strikes, hurricanes, and blade failures drastically reduce the amount of power, aka no wind, no power.
In July 2024, a blade broke off one of the newly installed Vineyard Wind turbines. The result is an environmental nightmare with 50 tons of microplastics, balsa wood, and foam in the ocean environment. All the blades made in Canada are defective, and material continues washing up on Nantucket beaches.
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In September 2024, a few months after the defective blade failure, Governor Maura Healey announced that Massachusetts selected 2,678 megawatts of offshore wind power. This is equal to almost four Plymouth nuclear plants. The state put all its eggs in one basket and now has to raise utility bills to import gas and energy.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked wind energy over alleged impacts on whales. NOAA Fisheries has declared an unusual mortality event for humpback whale strandings along the Atlantic coast. The event began in 2016 with the construction of the Block Island, Rhode Island, ocean turbines and has followed the construction to 2025.
Federal and state officials were well aware of noise tests done in Boone, North Carolina, completed in 1985 by the US Department of Energy by Scientist Neil Kelly.
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Multiple offshore wind companies are facing multiple lawsuits in federal and state courts.
Offshore wind is a poor investment. The only alternative is safe Advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) a key goal to develop safe, clean, and affordable nuclear power options for the future.
This is a great update, Frank!
I’m going to add that I have been through NOAAs online reports for whales deaths.
There isn’t a category for windmill-related death, so everything is categorized as net entanglement.
This is by design.
The announced “number of homes” these environmental abominations are claiming they will power is pure propaganda. The missing modifier is “at full power”. Per the DOE, the capacity factor (the correct way to assess the reliable power output) is in the range of 40% to 50%. In other words, divide all those happy numbers of home totals by at least 2.
Bingo. By at least 2, perhaps 3 or 4. The repetition of those “number of homes” claims is complete nonsense. So why do it?
The number of homes powered would be accurate only if enough storage was being installed to cover for the times when wind power wasn’t available.
And that “storage” requires batteries which require lithium mining and/or it requires backup generators requiring oil. Clean energy is nonsense.
Battery storage.
Gas turbine back up.
Lower fuel costs.
Let’s do the math on this.
Offshore wind capacity factor is 45-50%, considerably higher than onshore, because the turbines are much taller, and wind is more consistent higher and on the ocean. Capacity factor is higher in winter when we need it more due to low solar output. So for each MW capacity, about 4200 MWh is generated per year.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/wright-says-its-not-windy-in-winter-data-says-otherwise-2/
New England homes use 551-752 kWh/month, some of the lowest in the nation, with the largest state Massachusetts at 638. That amounts to 6.6-9 MWh/year, with the average around 7.5.
https://www.electricchoice.com/blog/electricity-on-average-do-homes/
So each MW provides enough energy for 560 homes, and Vineyard Wind 1 at 800 MW is good for about 450k homes.
The article says 400,000 homes. So in reality, wind farms provide energy for about 10% more homes than the article states.
Responsibly developed offshore wind can lower energy costs, protect wildlife from the impacts of climate change, and improve the health and quality of life for people on Cape Cod. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation out there—much of it pushed by oil companies that benefit when the public believes those falsehoods.
I never give any credibility to someone who hides behind “anonymous.”
Constance great point and so very true.
Quoting from this article,
Ocean Winds
“However, it still requires a key permit from NOAA Fisheries to incidentally harm marine mammals, as well as a finalized power purchase agreement with Massachusetts utilities, which was in part delayed due to uncertainty created by federal policy”.
This should ring alarm bells but is only causal mentioned but an easy and quick search for what this wording actually means and you come across these chilling words!
“The MMPA prohibits the “take” of marine mammals, with certain exceptions. Sections 101(a)(5)(A) and (D) of the MMPA (16 U.S.C. 1361 et seq.) direct the Secretary of Commerce (as delegated to NMFS) to allow, upon request, the incidental, but not intentional, taking of small numbers of marine mammals by U.S. citizens who engage in a specified activity (other than commercial fishing) within a specified”…
“Authorization for incidental takings shall be granted if NMFS finds that the taking will have a negligible impact on the species or stock(s) and will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of the species or stock(s) for taking for subsistence uses (where relevant). Further, NMFS must prescribe the permissible methods of taking and other “means of effecting the least practicable adverse impact” on the affected”…
What we do in the name of the American Dream, bigger, better, faster, more, more, more which no amount of energy will EVER satisfy (we dont have an energy crises, we have a consumption crisis) effects generations yet to be born with the mess that will be left behind, or in other words, today’s problems were yesterday’s solutions.
Sadly, those marine mammals that have been incidental but not intentional, “taking” never had a chance to reproduce.
The reality of OSW!
The Gulf Of America.
The reality of hydrocarbons.
Life is choices.
Sadly, those marine mammals that have been incidental but not intentional, “taking” never had a chance to reproduce.
There are 2 million acres under lease. The State of Rhode Island contains 790,00 acres. Of six developers the Light lists, there are actually 12 developers, of which only 2 are all-American. The sic are approved for 418 turbines with a production estimate of 4.968 MW. That is an average of 11.9 MW per turbine. o 2.0 million acres! Brayton Point covered 345 acres. The actual plant and its infrastructure,including the port, covered 120 acres. The plant generated 1,365 MW or 11.38MW per acre. A far, far more efficient generation of a constant 50hz of electricity into the grid since 1958, which the wind turbines can never duplicate. We, the public, are being fleeced, lied to and taken advantage of by government and the developers. No one can answer what the per kw hr. this turbine grid will cost. Thank God for President Trump. To hell with local politicians and duplicitous mayors. No one has told you that only 17 SMRS [Small Modular Reactors] can produce this power more efficiently and at far less cost than these ocean-wrecking turbines.
I agree with the previous comment that says offshore wind is a poor investment and I also believe it should be shut down. It’s of great importance to protect our Environment, Peninsulas, Oceans, Rivers, Bays, Inlets, Coves, Sea Life, and the Fishing Industry for future generations.
Thank you for this rundown New Bedford Light and Anastasia Lennon. Can you uncover in your research the status for each project of blinking red lights all night (not only when aircraft are approaching), i.e., which of this wind farm projects claimed they would have the lights, versus which actually do now, and which claim the steadily blinking lights are only a temporary measure? For example, South Fork says “completed.” Do the South Fork windmills blink steadily (red lights) all night, currently? Why (my understanding is that the blinking lights were supposed to happen only when the projects were still under construction)?
I would dispute a lot of these figures, one in particular the 2,900 jobs is a fabrication and most of the jobs were outsourced. Solar power using crystal’s to charge large batteries will and is the new technology. Wind is old school.
Wind turbines are not going to meet the demands of the future
Our electric bills are higher not lower
Wind turbines are “green pablum”. Placing windmills in the ocean is not even close to a viable solution for our energy requirements, let alone an economic one.
These “Flying Blades” projects, though profitable to some, are a distraction from land based efficient energy production.
Bill McKibben wrote to first significant book on climate change, “The End of Nature” in 1989. I advise everyone to read his latest, “Here Comes the Sun”, which states definitively, economically, and scientifically that wind and solar energy with battery storage are now the least expensive source of energy, even when not accounting for the environmental harm that comes from burning fossil fuels which dominate current electrical generation. These harms are air, water, and climate pollution.
In his latest book, McKibben rightly points out that 40% of the world’s ocean shipping is transporting fossil fuels and that whales are injured and killed by moving ships. Wind towers don’t move.