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Vineyard Wind shipped its first full wind turbine out of New Bedford on a comfortably sunny day in late 2023. The company courted national media to promote the momentous occasion, which drew reporters and company executives to the edge of the hurricane barrier. With drones buzzing overhead, the enormous turbine components slowly passed through the barrier opening and out to sea. Celebratory cheers followed.
This December, the last turbine was scheduled to depart. But it won’t. It’s stuck in the Port of New Bedford after the Trump administration suspended the project, along with four others well under construction, along the East Coast.
2025 IN REVIEW
During President Donald Trump’s first term, offshore wind permitting stalled, but federal agencies did not freeze projects under construction or consider revoking prior approvals. His second term has been a total escalation. Trump declared his opposition to offshore wind power on the day he was sworn in. The administration’s actions have delayed, dampened and overshadowed industry progress, prompting developers to grow quiet and openly question the viability of at least one Massachusetts project.
Some industry experts told The Light that these last 12 months have been far worse for offshore wind than they expected — and that was before the five-project suspension was announced on Dec. 22.
Here’s what happened to the industry in New England this year.
Trump delivers on (most) promises
Trump has taken many jabs at offshore wind over the years. But on his first day in office, he formalized his animus into policy through a presidential memorandum.
It froze all new leasing and project permitting, and instructed the Interior Department to conduct a project-wide review on the “ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy … and submit a report with recommendations to the President.”
Nearly one year in, the federal government has shown little progress with that review. And it’s taken more than 25 federal actions, through various agencies and departments, that further regulate, stymie or imperil offshore wind projects, including two planned for the commonwealth.
In December, a federal judge in Massachusetts struck down Trump’s wind memo, declaring it illegal. But it remains unclear what relief, if any, the ruling will provide to beleaguered projects. Some experts predict: not much.
Still, Trump, weeks before assuming office, said that “no new windmills” would be built under his administration. That didn’t happen. Across the East Coast, at least 50 turbines, more than 150 turbine foundations, and four substations have been pounded into the seafloor and erected during his second term.
Administration suspends five under-construction projects
Just days before the Christmas holiday, the Interior Department announced it was suspending construction at five wind farms: Vineyard Wind, Revolution Wind, Sunrise Wind, Empire Wind and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, citing national security concerns.
This is the most extreme step taken by the administration following dozens of unprecedented actions this year. The three-month suspension, which the federal government has the authority to extend, may jeopardize the projects. Two of them incurred tens of millions of dollars in losses amid previous stop-work orders, which lasted one month.
Vineyard Wind, the only one that’s producing power, is permitted to continue sending power to the grid, under its suspension order. Revolution Wind was set to start sending electrons to Rhode Island in January. Now it can’t.
Vineyard Wind sends power to thousands of homes
Though Vineyard Wind remains under construction, the project has increased its output throughout the year, selling enough electricity this fall to power approximately 50,000 homes in Massachusetts. Vineyard Wind still has blades to install, meaning full power won’t be reached until next year — and that’s if the Trump administration or a court ruling ends the Dec. 22 suspension.
Estimating homes powered is not an exact science. It can vary due to grid demand, maintenance work on turbines, seasonal changes in wind speeds and average monthly household electricity consumption (which typically increases in the summer when air conditioners are churning).
According to Gov. Maura Healey’s office, the project has reached a power capacity of 572 megawatts (or about 72% of the project’s 800 megawatts).
Federal data for the project’s output from October to December, with which The Light calculates homes powered, will be released at the end of January.
If you’d like to see how we calculate this figure, much-touted by developers, check out our math.
Projects incur financial hits, delays, and threats to permits
The Trump administration took an unprecedented step twice when it issued stop work orders against Equinor’s Empire Wind in April, and Orsted’s Revolution Wind in August. The orders forced construction at each site to halt for about four weeks.
Offshore wind projects operate on tight schedules, as installation requires specialized vessels that number few internationally. Even short delays can derail contracts. In those weeks, Equinor said it lost about $50 million per week; Orsted said the pause cost it $2.3 million per day.
As for projects that haven’t yet broken ground, SouthCoast Wind CEO Michael Brown said his company’s project has been delayed at least two years thanks to the Trump administration.
Our offshore wind tracker: What’s new with wind projects off Massachusetts and beyond?
Offshore wind is changing fast. Here’s our tracker, first published in April 2025, and the latest on where the Northeast’s wind projects stand as of Dec. 22, 2025.
Months after Brown made the remarks as part of a lawsuit, prospects for SouthCoast Wind worsened when the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management requested a remand of the project’s final construction approval permit. A federal judge granted that request in November, and it could result in BOEM revoking the permit.
BOEM made the same request of a different federal judge for New England Wind, another Massachusetts project. Unlike SouthCoast Wind, this project is fully permitted at the federal level. Whether either project locks down a power purchase agreement with Massachusetts remains to be seen. The preliminary deadline, which was already postponed several times, is Dec. 31.
New Bedford stands to gain — or lose — much from SouthCoast Wind and New England Wind, both of which plan to invest in the city and establish long-term operations and maintenance work in the port.
Administration terminates funding to study offshore wind’s impacts
In what some called an ironic twist, the Trump administration slashed funding for research projects that would have helped Trump-supporting stakeholders, like some fishermen, determine what impacts wind farms are having on their livelihoods and commercially fished species.
The canceled study, which would have employed New Bedford fishermen, is one casualty of billions in federal clean-energy funding cuts in mostly Democrat-led states.
Wind developers already collect this type of data to varying degrees, but the companies generally keep it private. This research project would have collected similar data and made it public.
Other casualties of funding cuts were a long-running whale survey conducted by Massachusetts institutions, a study on community impacts of offshore wind in New England (including in New Bedford), and a West Coast study on offshore wind turbines and bats.
However, a first-of-its-kind in the U.S. research project is set to launch out of New Bedford in 2026 with the help of state funding. Scientists, working with local fishermen, will measure how commercial fishing boats and their varied gear operate within wind farms. The data could answer some unanswered questions on coexistence, and whether current financial compensation agreements for fishermen are sufficient.
What the industry had planned for 2026
Several project milestones slated to happen in 2025 didn’t happen due to the Trump administration’s adversarial stance towards offshore wind. Likewise, several milestones were planned for 2026, but may now change due to the recent project suspensions:
- Vineyard Wind was planning to wrap up its installation work by March.
- Revolution Wind expected to start sending power to the grid.
- Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW), the largest offshore wind project on the East Coast, expected to start generating power.
- Empire Wind expected to start sending power late in the year.
- If these four projects can still reach their power-on deadlines by the end of 2026, the East Coast will have five commercial scale wind projects operating at a capacity of about 5 gigawatts of offshore wind energy (or an estimated 1.9 million homes, per the developers’ numbers). Most wind farms operate at a capacity factor of about 50%, however, and will on average send about half of the nameplate capacity, so closer to 2.5 gigawatts altogether.
More conflict ahead
What is certain for the offshore wind industry is more conflict — and more uncertainty. Northeast states, which are counting on offshore wind to reach climate mandates and satisfy growing energy demand, have taken a lead role in challenging the Trump administration. But will we see developers start to fight back more, too?
- We may see another multi-state suit against the Trump administration over its suspension of five projects. The developer of the Virginia project has already sued.
- Key approvals for New England Wind and SouthCoast Wind are in the balance. We could see BOEM opt to revoke these permits, which it previously approved in 2024 and early 2025.
- Massachusetts may again extend its deadline for power purchase agreements with New England Wind and SouthCoast Wind. The execution of these critical agreements has been delayed numerous times, with the state most recently citing the “changing federal landscape.”
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
