The Trump administration has halted Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, the largest offshore wind project in the United States, along with four other projects under construction off the East Coast, dealing a significant blow to the United States wind industry.
Shares in Dominion Energy, the utility developing the Virginia-based project, closed 3.7% lower following the announcement.
The administration also paused leases for Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island, Sunrise Wind near Long Island and New England, and Empire Wind 1 south of Long Island.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the leases were paused due to national security concerns raised by the Pentagon.
Shares of Denmark’s Orsted, which is developing the Revolution and Sunrise projects, slumped 12.7%, while U.S.-listed shares of Norway’s Equinor, the developer of Empire Wind 1, fell about 1%.
Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind is a 176-turbine project expected to supply power to more than 600,000 homes, according to Dominion. The project was scheduled for completion next year.
Dominion said the development is critical to U.S. national security and to meeting Virginia’s rapidly rising energy demand. Northern Virginia is the world’s largest data centre hub, with growing electricity consumption driven in part by artificial intelligence, contributing to higher power prices in the state.
“Stopping CVOW for any length of time will threaten grid reliability for some of the nation’s most important war fighting, AI, and civilian assets,” Dominion said in a statement.
“It will also lead to energy inflation and threaten thousands of jobs,” the utility said.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, supports the project. Incoming governor Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, won November’s election after campaigning on a pledge to address rising electricity costs, partly by expanding renewable energy capacity.
The Interior Department said the pause would allow the federal government time to “work with leaseholders and state partners to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects”.
“The clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of the wind projects,” Interior said.
President Donald Trump has targeted the US wind industry since his first day in office. On 20 January, Trump ordered a halt to all new onshore and offshore wind leases and permits pending a federal review.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer criticised the administration’s stance, calling the decision “irrational” and warning it would push energy prices higher.
“Trump’s obsession with killing offshore wind projects is unhinged, irrational, and unjustified,” Schumer said in a statement on Monday.
“At a time of soaring energy costs, this latest decision from DOI is a backwards step that will drive energy bills even higher.”
Trump’s actions against the wind sector have also faced legal challenges. On 8 December, U.S. District Court Judge Patti Saris ruled that the president’s order was “arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law”.
