Wind

Biden's legacy | America's first wave of offshore wind projects now facing Trump

Scorecard of the 11 projects totalling nearly 19GW approved under the former president that now faces a hostile administration bent on derailing it

Former President Joe Biden
Former President Joe BidenPhoto: Flickr/U.S. Secretary of Defense
US Offshore Wind Editor, Recharge

What a difference a presidency can make.

Almost exactly four years ago, at the start of former President Joe Biden's administration, Recharge highlighted promising US offshore wind projects.
The sector was just getting started, powered by Biden's huge climate and energy ambitions that included 30GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030. Optimism was high that the nation was creating a bold new industry that would put tens of thousands to work while slashing power generation emissions.

At that time the nation had a grand total of 42MW of operational offshore wind capacity and only two large-scale projects nearing the end of their permitting regimes.

Flash forward four years, and the sector finds itself in a very different place.

Eleven projects holding some 19GW of capacity have been approved by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). One commercial scale project, Orsted’s South Fork, is already operational while three more are under construction, with another two soon to follow.

A blockbuster lease auction in the New York Bight in 2022 saw 488,00 acres (1,975 sq. km) holding at least 7GW netted the federal government $4.34bn.
This was followed by the nation’s first floating wind round off California, and further rounds in the Carolina Long Bay, Gulf of Mexico, Central Atlantic and Gulf of Maine.

Yet amid these successes, the industry faced massive and often terminal struggles with surging inflation and interest rates. Costs rose by as much as 50%. Some projects fell apart, unable to get financing under low-priced offtake, while others regrouped and/or rebranded, with new contracts at higher rates.

More critically, Biden has been replaced by sector hater Donald Trump, who followed through on his longstanding promise to derail the industry through executive actions that have chilled progress and investment.

Below is a scorecard, projects that are on track despite the challenges (and some that fell by the wayside).

South Fork

Owner: Orsted and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). Nameplate capacity: 132MW. Location: Rhode Island & Massachusetts wind energy area (WEA)
Although tiny as a commercial scale offshore wind farm, Orsted’s South Fork stands tall as the second American array to be fully permitted and begin construction and the first to enter commercial operations last March.

South Fork is New York’s only project not contracted through New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (Nyserda) but instead signed offtake with state utility Long Island Power Authority in 2017.

Complete with rate escalators that bring it a levelised nominal price of $160/MWh over its 20-year duration, South Fork is among the few US arrays to not seek price adjustments.

The array is currently sending power from its 12 Siemens Gamesa 11MW turbines to the Long Island, New York grid.

Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind

Owner: Dominion Energy. Nameplate capacity: 2.6GW. Location: east of Virginia.

If the US offshore wind sector has a hero, it must be Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW).

The mammoth 2.6GW array is by far the largest to gain federal greenlight, and is also the only array to remain on time and almost on-budget, with 78 monopiles and several transition pieces and subsea cables already in place.

While it recently raised its price tag from $9.8bn to $10.7bn, this was on grid interconnection charges that were outside Dominion's control. Project Capex remains at only $4,500 per kW, comparable to European costs.

It's also the only project developed by a regulated utility with no prior experience in offshore wind beyond its 12MW CVOW-pilot.

In contrast to Northeast deregulated markets, Dominion is developing CVOW as a conventional power plant, complete with guaranteed state-managed cost recovery. This certainty enabled the developer to sign major supplier contracts in 2021 that locked in prices before inflation began to bite.

Dominion anticipates all 176 Siemens Gamesa 14MW turbines will be installed by 2027 when the project will be commissioned, helping the utility to meet surging demand for power.

Vineyard Wind

Owners: Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). Nameplate capacity: 800MW. Location: Rhode Island & Massachusetts WEA
After a decade of struggle, the nation’s “forever first” offshore wind array… continues to fight.

Vineyard nearly made the permitting finish line before Trump in one of the final acts in his first term sent it back for additional review.

Vineyard was finally approved in March of 2021 and entered at-sea construction in 2023, installing its first 13MW GE Haliade-X turbine in October of that year.

Construction momentum was derailed by a shattered blade in July last year that littered the beaches of ultrarich playgrounds of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts with debris and became a rallying cry for sector opponents.

Regulators shut the project down while the developer and its OEM, GE Vernova, conducted a root-cause analysis that ultimately revealed manufacturing problems.

Turbine installation resumed late last year, and GE expects to install all 64 units by the end of 2025

Revolution Wind

Owner: Orsted and GIP. Nameplate capacity: 704MW. Location: Rhode Island & Massachusetts WEA.
Construction of Orsted’s second US offshore wind array Revolution is underway but has been postponed by unexpectedly high levels of industrial pollutants at the site of its onshore substation at Quonset Business Park, Rhode Island, delaying its completion until next year.

The 704MW project, also part of Orsted’s JV with GIP, is unique in having contracted off-take (20 years) with two states. Rhode Island is taking 400MW of capacity and Connecticut 304MW, both at low rates of around $99/MWh, according to ACP.

BOEM approved its construction and operations plan (COP) in November, 2023, and it began offshore installation last year.

Marshalled out of State Pier in New London, Connecticut, and deploying several other ports in Rhode Island, Danish offshore contractor Cadeler has already installed at least seven of the array’s eventual 65 11MW Siemens Gamesa turbines.

Sunrise Wind

Owner: Orsted. Nameplate capacity: 920MW. Location: Rhode Island & Massachusetts WEA.
Sunrise was an early Nyserda-contracted project, having been initially awarded in New York’s first offshore wind tender in 2019. Its contract price didn’t survive inflationary headwinds, and it was withdrawn and resubmitted into the state’s Round 4, where it was re-awarded at substantially higher rates of an estimated $146/MWh.

The new contract enabled Orsted to take full control following the exit of Eversource from the industry.

The Danish developer took final investment on the project last March after BOEM issued a Record of Decision (ROD) greenlighting its environmental review, followed by COP approval in June.

Onshore construction has already started but the project won’t head offshore until next year when it will begin installing its 84 Siemens Gamesa 11MW turbines on acreage adjacent to Revolution and South Fork in the Massachusetts-Rhode Island WEA.

Empire Wind I

Owner: Equinor. Nameplate capacity: 810MW. Location: south of Long Island.
Equinor’s 810MW Empire Wind 1 remains on track despite setbacks and a massive price tag that now sits at $7bn, over $8,000 per kW, so far the highest cost US project.

Empire was awarded in New York’s first round alongside Sunrise, and like that project saw its offtake sink amid surging inflation and interest rates. It too was re-awarded in Round 4 at $155/MWh.

Along the way, Empire saw its sister project, the 1.2GW Empire Wind 2 scrapped due to cost concerns amid Equinor's split with partner, oil supermajor BP, in January last year.

Onshore construction has already started as well as at South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, the array's marshalling and operations and maintenance (O&M) hub.

The project underpins Equinor’s $865m investment in SBMT as well as Danish shipper Maersk’s new-build wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) under construction at Seatrium’s Singapore yard.

Offshore construction of Empire is expected to begin in 2026.

MarWin/Momentum Wind

Owner: US Wind, a unit of Italy’s Renexia. Nameplate capacity: 1.5GW. Location: east of Maryland.
As most American offshore wind projects withered under scorching inflation and Trump hostility, US Wind actually enlarged its project scope and price.

Its 270MW MarWin and 866MW Momentum Wind have been rearranged and joined by a third phase, bringing the total to 1.5GW.

Maryland state regulators also raised the value of offshore wind renewable energy credits (OREC) earned by the project. One OREC is equivalent to the environmental attributes of 1MWh of offshore wind power.

This outcome reflects varying project fortunes in the chaos of the US industry.

As Orsted faltered and eventually sidelined its nearly 1GW Skipjack arrays, Maryland regulators in need of vast amounts of renewable power to satisfy energy and emissions mandates granted US Wind the abandoned ORECs.

BOEM greenlighted the project last December, with offshore installation not slated to begin until 2028, the developer confirmed to Recharge.

New England Wind

Owner: Avangrid Renewables. Nameplate capacity: 791MW. Location: Rhode Island & Massachusetts WEA.

While Iberdrola-controlled Avangrid has been at the fore of the US offshore wind sector for years, including flagship array Vineyard Wind 1 with JV partner CIP, its independent projects have struggled to take flight.

Its 804MW Park City project awarded by Connecticut in December 2019 at an estimated $79.8/MWh collapsed in 2023 under the force of skyrocketing inflation and interest rates.
Avangrid's 1.2GW Commonwealth Wind awarded by Massachusetts in its 2021 Round 3 at $72/MWh, suffered the same fate.
The developer won a new offtake contract with Massachusetts for 791MW in the nation’s first tristate procurement round last September, but still hasn’t finalised contracts with utilities. This raises risk for the array despite having all federal approvals for 2.6GW of capacity as of last July.

Atlantic Shores

Owner: EDF and Shell Nameplate capacity: 1.5GW Location: east of Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic Shores returned to the media spotlight in recent weeks following oil major Shell’s announcement that it was quitting the 1.5GW array in the wake of nearly $1bn impairment it took on the project.

Partner, French utility EDF, likewise took nearly as big a hit of $941m but maintained the project is on track.

This is only the latest blow to the prospects for Atlantic Shores, which has found itself in the unenviable position of being the highest-profile target of Trump’s invective against offshore wind.

Trump spotlighted Atlantic Shores directly when he vowed to stop the industry “on day one” at an election rally in coastal resort Wildwood last summer and has publicly stated he hoped the project was “dead and gone”.

Atlantic Shores was awarded in 2021 at a low price of $58.8/MWh and is widely assumed to be seeking higher rates, although the developer has declined to confirm.

Despite pulling back from the project awarded by New Jersey, Shell is holding on to its share of Atlantic Shores’ vast acreage off New Jersey and $780m lease in the New York Bight.

BOEM approved 3GW of project capacity in the entirety of the Atlantic Shores South lease area, with enough area remaining to help meet New Jersey’s 11GW by 2040 goal.

Mayflower Wind/SouthCoast Wind

Owner: Ocean Winds Nameplate capacity: 1.2GW. Location. Rhode Island & Massachusetts WEA.

SouthCoast Wind dropped a bombshell last month when it conceded that despite being fully permitted, the array is likely to languish for the duration of Trump’s term.

EDP Renewables, which is advancing SouthCoast via its Ocean Winds joint venture with Engie, booked a “prudent” $138m impairment against its US offshore wind assets that assumes a four-year delay to a project that is “ready to go”, according to EDPR chief executive Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade.

SouthCoast, previously known as Mayflower Wind, was awarded its first 804MW in Massachusetts' Round 2 in 2020 at $77.76/MWh, while the remaining 405MW was procured in 2021 at $75/MWh.

The award in December of that year came just as the nation was slipping into major inflation that reached some 9% in 2022. By mid-2023, the developer had cancelled its contracts, paying a $60m penalty for doing so.

Last year, Shell, which had partnered with Ocean Winds on the project, likewise exited as part of its overall shift to refocus on its oil & gas business.

The project was rebid into the New England tristate procurement where it gained 1GW from Massachusetts and 200MW from Rhode Island in last September’s award.

As with Avangrid’s New England array, SouthCoast has yet to finalise contracts with utilities in either state.

SouthCoast is also the last project approved by the Biden administration, with BOEM greenlighting its COP for 2.4GW on 17 January, days before Trump’s inauguration.

New England Aqua Ventus I

Owners: State of Maine, University of Maine, Diamond Offshore Wind. Nameplate capacity: 144MW. Location: adjacent to Gulf of Maine WEA
In a first for the US, BOEM approved the state of Maine's application for a research array to be built in federal waters adjacent to the vast Gulf of Maine WEA.

The Maine Research Array (MeRA) is jointly owned by Mitsubishi's Diamond Offshore Wind (DOW) and the state, with the University of Maine as technical advisers.

The largely rural state derives significant economic benefit from its coastal resources, and while governor Janet Mills has leant her support for offshore wind, Maine has opted for a go-slow approach to development to ensure the industry doesn't conflict with important lobster and other fisheries.

BOEM approved the 10-turbine floating array last August, putting the state in pole position for floating wind development in the US.

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Published 13 March 2025, 17:13Updated 14 March 2025, 14:26
AmericasUSDominion EnergyCopenhagen Infrastructure PartnersIberdrola