Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, Regulation, tagged 5 suspended projects, BOEM, Offshore Wind, suspension letter on December 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Attached is the letter sent to operators of the 5 projects that have been suspended. The cited regulation reads as follows:
§ 585.417 When may BOEM order a suspension?
BOEM may order a suspension under the following circumstances:
(a) When necessary to comply with judicial decrees prohibiting some or all activities under your lease; or
(b) When the suspension is necessary for reasons of national security or defense.
Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, tagged Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, directed suspension, Dominion Energy, energy mandates, Thomas Jefferson Institute on December 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Excerpts from an excellent opinion piece by Derrick Max of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy:
Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) is no ordinary renewable project. It was created by legislative command. The 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) declared Dominion’s 2.6-gigawatt wind farm “in the public interest,” effectively tying the hands of the State Corporation Commission and guaranteeing Dominion full cost recovery and profit. The risk doesn’t sit with shareholders — it sits with Virginia’s ratepayers.
The Thomas Jefferson Institute opposed that structure from the start. We warned that forcing captive customers to underwrite an unproven, high-cost project located in a hurricane prone region would expose Virginians to escalating bills with little accountability. Yet when a group recently asked the federal government to shut CVOW down, we declined to join. Why? Because government shouldn’t pick winners and losers — not when it mandates projects, and not when it stops them. Especially when a project is in its final stretch and no economic analysis of such a decision has been completed (or shared).
Virginia’s offshore wind story shows how risky it is when government drives energy decisions by decree. One administration mandates a massive buildout; the next halts it over security fears. Businesses can’t plan around that. Ratepayers shouldn’t have to pay for it.
Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, tagged Atlantic wind, Empire Wind, leases suspended, Revolution Wind, Secretary Burgum, Sunrise Wind, Vineyard Wind, Virginia Offshore Wind on December 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The suspended leases are for Vineyard Wind 1, Revolution Wind, Sunrise Wind, Empire Wind, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind. (See the map below).These are the only Atlantic Wind projects under construction.
Given the $billions in expenditures to date and coastal State support for these projects, expect negotiated mitigations or litigation.
Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, tagged Atlantic wind, leases suspended, national security, Secretary Burgum on December 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Posted in accidents, Offshore Wind, Regulation, energy policy, tagged Vineyard Wind, Nantucket, blade failure, MOU, penalties, accountability on December 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The attached Memorandum of Understanding between Vineyard Wind (VW) and the Town of Nantucket is long on bureaucratic procedures and short on risk mitigation and penalties.
The agreement details requirements for monthly reports, liaisons, written correspondence, plan reviews, and participation on incident management teams, but excludes any monetary penalties for past or future incidents. (With regard to penalties, should BSEE have assessed civil penalties for the 2024 turbine incident in accordance with 30 CFR § 285.400 (f)? This was a major pollution event.)
This MOU provision gives the impression that the Town is subordinate to VW:
“The Town will provide Vineyard Wind 1 up to 4 business days, if required, to identify and correct errors in the Town’s intended public communications about the Project.”
The responsible party should not be exercising oversight over the communications of an affected local government. Can you imagine Santa Barbara County reaching such an agreement with Sable Offshore?
Finally, the MOU further establishes the Town as a de facto partner in the project. VW, not the Town, is the responsible party and must be held fully accountable for project performance.
Posted in Offshore Wind, energy policy, tagged Offshore Wind, Executive Order, Judge Saris, permitting moratorium on December 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Judge Patti Saris vacated part 2 of Trump’s 1/20/2025 “Wind Memo.” Part 1, which withdrew all OCS lands from wind leasing, was not in dispute. Part 2 suspended issuing wind energy permits and other authorizations.
The judge ruled (full order attached) that the suspension of wind permitting violates Administrative Procedures Act provisions requiring agencies “to proceed within a reasonable time and to set and complete proceedings expeditiously.”
She concluded further that “the moratorium halts all wind energy authorizations indefinitely, pending a comprehensive assessment with no timeline, which is inconsistent with statutory deadlines and general commands for prompt processing in laws like OCSLA, the Clean Water Act, and others governing wind projects.”
Although the judge’s assessment of the permitting moratorium seems sound, the merits of offshore wind as a primary energy source remain very much in doubt.
Posted in accidents, Offshore Wind, Regulation, tagged blade failure, BSEE, investigation, New Bedford Light, panel reports, publication delays, Vineyard Wind on December 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Excellent New Bedford Light piece on the unacceptable delay in completing the blade failure investigation report.
The Town of Nantucket’s attorney, Greg Werkheiser of Cultural Heritage Partners, told The Light last month that “it’s taken far too long” to get a final report on the blade failure.
It’s noteworthy that there have also been unacceptable delays in issuing panel reports for serious offshore oil and gas incidents:
| ncident date | report date | elapsed time (months) | incident type |
| 5/15/2021 | 10/31/2023 | 29.5 | fatality |
| 1/24/2021 | 7/24/2023 | 30 | fatality |
| 8/23/2020 | 2/15/2023 | 30 | fatality |
| 7/25/2020 | 2/15/2023 | 31 | spill |
Posted in accidents, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, Offshore Wind, tagged Eskild Lund Sorensen, G+ incident report, Offshore Wind, wind safety on November 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“So, the safety culture is fine because we don’t report when people die.” Former Ørsted safety head, Eskild Lund Sørensen, accuses offshore wind body G+ of cherry picking data. The 2024 G+ incident data report is attached.
Member companies, which include major players such as Ørsted, Equinor, Vattenfall, RWE, and CIP, report quarterly data on accidents, near-misses, hazardous observations, and equipment damage. As is the case with most industry reporting schemes, anonymity is prioritized over transparency.
Sørensen asserts that the G+ wind industry data are incomplete: ”It shows that what is reported under the guidelines has gone down, and also that there is a cut off on what is being reported that does not include the full value chain on the industry.” He notes that a contractor to Northland Power from Canada, a member of G+, was involved in a 2024 workplace accident in Taiwan that resulted in three fatalities. (It’s also noteworthy that Equinor’s 2024 Empire Wind fatality was not included.)
Sørensen: ”There have been no significant improvements in the last 10 years. Safety in offshore wind is neither getting worse nor better. There are no signs of that.”
”I’m speaking up because we owe people the truth. If we’re not honest about the actual safety conditions in offshore wind, we can’t change them. Misinformation about workplace safety creates a dangerous illusion that everything is “under control”, while too many people are getting hurt. But when we dare to speak about reality as it is, we create the foundation for a safer, faster, and truly sustainable energy transition,” Sørensen says.
”And then it becomes difficult to learn if you have to wait for something to go through 57 gates and down past legal,” he says. (Sound familiar?)
In the U.S., both industry and govt need to do a better job of sharing complete incident data in a timely manner.
Posted in accidents, energy policy, Offshore Wind, tagged Lars Herbst, Plymouth, Scotland Against Spin, Siemens Gamesa, turbine blade failure, Vineyard Wind on November 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Friday’s turbine blade failure in Plymouth MA is perhaps getting added attention given its proximity to the 7/13/2024 Vineyard Wind blade failure offshore Nantucket. The Plymouth blade landed in a nearby cranberry bog (video and picture below).
Per the MV Times, the turbines for the Plymouth project were manufactured by Gamesa, which is now part of Siemens Gamesa. Both the South Fork Wind and Revolution Wind projects off the coast of the Martha’s Vineyard are being developed by Ørsted using turbines from Siemens Gamesa. Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, the largest offshore wind project in the United States, is also being developed with Siemens Gamesa turbines. This is not to imply a higher degree of risk for those turbines. Vineyard Wind, where the only US offshore failure has occurred to date, is using GE Vernova turbines.
Unfortunately, turbine blade failures are much too common. Last October, Lars Herbst reported, based on a Wind Power article, that “with an estimated 700,000 blades in operation globally, there are, on average, 3,800 incidents of blade failure each year.” Lars noted that the annual blade failure rate of about 0.5% translates to 1.5% of all operating wind turbines experiencing a blade failure every year, a remarkably high failure frequency.
Scotland Against Spin data indicate that blade failure is the second most common accident type in the wind industry, and the most common cause of accidents at operational wind turbine sites. SAS reports further that pieces of blade are documented as travelling up to one mile, and have gone through the roofs and walls of nearby buildings.
Lastly, we are still awaiting BSEE’s report on the Vineyard Wind failures so we can better understand what happened and why.
Posted in Offshore Wind, tagged BOEM, Nantucket, SouthCoast Wind, court order, reconsider COP approval, Judge Chutkan on November 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The Construction and Operations Plan (COP) for the SouthCoast Wind project was approved during the last week of the Biden Administration. That approval has been challenged by the Town and County of Nantucket. Ocean Wind, a joint venture of EDP Renewables (Portugal) and ENGIE (France), is the leaseholder.
Yesterday, the court issued an order concurring with the Federal government’s request for a voluntary remand of the COP approval. The court decision is attached. The Order concludes as follows:
It is ORDERED that the case be REMANDED to BOEM for reconsideration of its decision and that proceedings in this court are STAYED until further order of the court. It is further ORDERED that, on or before January 3, 2026, and every 60 days thereafter, the parties shall file a joint status report indicating the status of BOEM’s remand proceedings. It is further ORDERED that on or before 30 days following the issuance of a decision by BOEM, the parties shall file a joint status report informing the court if further proceedings are necessary and, if so, providing a proposed schedule for those proceedings.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 