Just 12 months ago, New England was braced for a sea change in its energy mix, with at least seven massive wind farms proposed for the coastal waters just offshore — the first of which to be completed this year.
That scale of development was supposed to be game-changing, policy makers and energy experts said, as New England has limited access to energy supplies, and some of the highest electricity rates in the country.
But, just over eight months into Donald Trump’s presidency, all but one has been stopped in its tracks, and that last one is facing stiffening political headwinds.
In rapid-fire fashion, the Trump administration moved to slow or outright stop offshore wind in New England. It filed courtorders to revoke permits for three projects that, when fully built, would have provided enough energy to power 1.7 million homes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It also canceled $679 million in federal funds for port infrastructure related to the wind farms, and issued a stop-work order for Revolution Wind in Rhode Island, which was under construction and around 80 percent done.
“The attacks from the Trump administration have been relentless, and they seem to be gaining speed in recent weeks and days,” said Kat Burnham, a senior principal at Advanced Energy United, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group representing clean energy, transmission, technology and transportation companies.
Now, rather than an industry on the verge of a boom, offshore wind on the East Coast is in real trouble. The setbacks would take years, if not a decade, to overcome, people in the industry say, and long-term may dissuade developers and financiers from building anew in the United States regardless of who is in the White House.
The latest moves are part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to undermine green energy sources while promoting fossil fuels. The White House has ordered multiple agencies — including some that have little to do with energy matters — to develop objections to offshore wind, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
That kind of action “sets a dangerous new precedent,” said Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association, which represents both clean energy and fossil fuel generating companies.
For many New England states, renewable energy is the linchpin to meeting their climate goals by reducing the use of fossil fuels as an energy source.
The road to building offshore wind has never been easy, with decades of opposition from anti-wind voices.
On Wednesday, the revocation of permits for two wind projects off the coasts of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket followed a lawsuit by the group ACK for Whales, which opposes offshore wind.
In a press release, the group’s attorney, Thomas Stavola Jr., said the Trump administration’s revocation “signifies a critical inflection point: the federal agencies are now recognizing what Plaintiffs have long argued — that the project’s approvals are fatally flawed and violate numerous environmental statutes.”
But Dolan and other industry experts said the stop-work order issued for the Rhode Island project, Revolution Wind, was particularly troubling, given how close it was to completion and the unusual reason the administration cited to stop it.
In issuing the order, Matthew Giacona, acting director of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, cited concerns related to “the protection of national security interests of the United States.”
Those include the potential for the wind farm to interfere with defenses against an undersea drone attack, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in an interview with CNN. “People with bad ulterior motives to the United States could launch a swarm drone attack through a wind farm. The radar gets very distorted if you’re trying to detect and avoid if you’ve got drones coming,” he said.
Larry Chretien, executive director of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, called that position “absurd.” Revolution Wind “had its site assessment reviewed by the Pentagon during Trump I,” he said. And given the upheaval in the energy markets after Russia’s war on Ukraine began, he added, it “seems clear that [offshore wind] enhances national security.”
In a statement on its website, Ørsted, the developer of Revolution Wind, said it is “considering a range of scenarios, including legal proceedings,” in response to the stop-work order.
Unlike other New England projects put on hold, Revolution Wind was fully permitted and under construction, and was under contract to provide 700 megawatts of electricity to the New England power grid. The regional grid operator, ISO-New England, bases its electricity supplies on a three- year time horizon, with Revolution Wind penciled into that mix as of next summer.
“Delaying the project will increase risks to reliability,” the grid operator warned in a
Meanwhile, as those wind farms were expected to be adding clean energy to the grid, older power plants that use fossil fuels are in the process of closing down.
The Mystic Power Station, a 1,400 megawatt natural gas generator, closed last year. Three smaller oil and coal plants — Schiller Station, Merrimack Station, and Middletown Power — are slated to close between this year and mid-2028, according to the New England Power Generators Association.
Between the potential loss of renewable sources and retirement of existing plants, the region will likely have less flexibility to respond to spikes and outages on the hottest and coldest days, Dolan said.
“That’s a disaster,” added Elizabeth Wilson, of Dartmouth College’s Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society.
“You’re wasting people’s time and you’re wasting people’s money,” Wilson said of the administration’s abrupt stoppages. “People are losing jobs, and our communities are not getting the power that we’re planning on.”
Chretien added that he hopes New England presses forward on renewable energy despite the administration’s opposition. He suggested states continue to solicit proposals from the industry and also invest in port infrastructure, anything but “total hibernation.”
Meanwhile, the long-range view is important, said Amy Boyd Rabin, vice president of policy at the Environmental League of Massachusetts.
“Energy in 2050 is going to come from renewables, otherwise we won’t be able to afford it,” she said. “So we will come back to our senses. We will come back to building these projects, and we will eventually have offshore wind.”