Attendees throughout a media tour of the Revolution Wind construction hub on the Port of Providence in Providence, Rhode Island, US, on Thursday, June 13, 2024.
Adam Glanzman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Danish renewable power firm Orsted will restart work “as soon as possible” on a wind farm off the coast of New England, after a federal choose on Monday blocked the Trump administration from implementing a cease work order.
“Revolution Wind will resume impacted construction work as soon as possible, with safety as the top priority,” Orsted mentioned in an announcement Monday.
The choose’s resolution is a setback for President Donald Trump’s effort to shut down the nascent offshore wind business within the U.S.
The Interior Department had ordered Orsted on Aug. 22 to halt construction on Revolution Wind off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The undertaking is totally permited and 80% full. It would supply energy for greater than 350,000 houses.
Orsted and its accomplice Skyborn Renewables had requested the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to halt Interior’s stop-work order, arguing that it was aribtrary, capricious, illegal and “issued in bad faith.”
While the choose granted the injunction request, a full opinion has but to be filed.
Trump has focused the wind energy business since his first day in workplace, when he banned new leases for offshore wind farms. But the business had hoped that totally permitted wind initiatives, notably these which can be already below construciton, could be allowed to proceed.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum mentioned earlier this month that he’s “taking a deep look” at 5 offshore wind projects within the U.S. which can be below construction. Burgum made clear that Trump desires to shut down the offshore wind business.
“Under this administration, there is not a future for offshore wind because it is too expensive and not reliable enough,” Burgum informed an viewers on the Gastech convention in Milan, Italy, on Sept. 11.