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US Offshore Wind Restarts After Court Injunctions
Allen covers four US offshore wind projects winning injunctions to resume construction, including major updates from Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia project. Plus Ming Yang’s proposed UK manufacturing facility faces security review delays, Seaway 7 lands the Gennaker contract in Germany, and Taiwan’s Fengmiao project hits a milestone.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
Happy Monday everyone!
Four offshore wind projects have secured preliminary injunctions blocking the Trump administration’s stop-work order.
Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind.
Avangrid’s Vineyard Wind 1.
Equinor’s Empire Wind.
And Ørsted’s Revolution Wind.
All four argued they were at critical stages of construction.
The courts agreed.
Work has resumed.
A fifth project… Ørsted’s Sunrise Wind… has a hearing scheduled for today.
Now… within days of getting back to work… milestones are being reached.
Dominion Energy reported seventy-one percent completion on Coastal Virginia.
The first turbine… installed in January.
The Charybdis… America’s only U.S.-flagged wind turbine installation vessel… is finally at work. Fifty-four towers, thirty nacelles, and twenty-six blade sets now staged at Portsmouth Marine Terminal. The third offshore substation has arrived.
But here is where the numbers tell the real story.
The month-long delay fighting the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management?
Two hundred twenty-eight million dollars.
New tariffs?
Another five hundred eighty million.
The project budget now stands at eleven-point-five billion dollars.
Nine-point-three billion already invested by end of 2025.
Dominion and partner Stonepeak are sharing the cost.
Dominion insists offshore wind remains the fastest and most economical way to deliver nearly three gigawatts to Virginia’s grid.
A grid that powers military installations… naval shipbuilding… and America’s growing AI and cyber capabilities.
First power expected this quarter.
Full completion… now pushed to early 2027.
Up in New England… Vineyard Wind 1 also resumed work.
The sixty-second and final turbine tower shipped from New Bedford this week.
Ten blade sets remain at the staging site.
The installation vessel is scheduled to depart by end of March.
The turbines are going up.
But eight hundred eight million dollars in delays and tariffs…
That is a price the entire industry is watching.
═══ Scotland Waits on Ming Yang Decision ═══
In Scotland… a decision that could reshape European supply chains… hangs in the balance.
Chinese manufacturer Ming Yang wants to build the UK’s largest wind turbine manufacturing facility.
The site… Ardersier… near Inverness. The investment… one-point-five billion pounds.
The jobs… fifteen hundred.
Trade Minister Chris Bryant says the government must weigh security.
Critical national infrastructure must be safe and secure.
Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney is losing patience.
He told reporters this week the decision has taken too long.
He called it pivotal to Scotland’s renewable energy potential…
and a crucial component of the nation’s just transition.
Meanwhile… Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week.
He spoke of building a more sophisticated relationship between the two nations.
Whisky tariffs… halved to five percent.
Wind turbine factories?
Still under review.
Bryant says they want a steady, eyes-wide-open relationship with China.
Drive up trade where possible.
Challenge where necessary.
But no flip-flopping.
For now… Scotland waits.
And so does the UK supply chain.
═══ Seaway 7 Lands Gennaker Contract ═══
In the German Baltic Sea… a major contract award.
Seaway 7, part of the Subsea 7 Group, will transport and install sixty-three monopiles and transition pieces for the Gennaker offshore wind farm.
The contract value… one hundred fifty to three hundred million dollars.
Subsea 7 calls it substantial.
The client is Skyborn Renewables… a portfolio company of BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners.
Nine hundred seventy-six megawatts of capacity.
Sixty-three Siemens Gamesa turbines.
Four terawatt-hours of annual generation.
Enough to power roughly one million German homes.
Seaway 7’s work begins next year.
═══ Taiwan’s Fengmiao Hits Milestone ═══
In Taiwan… Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners completed the first batch of jacket foundations for the Fengmiao offshore wind farm.
Five hundred megawatts.
On schedule for late 2027 completion.
Offshore installation begins later this year.
The jackets were built by Century Wind Power… a local Taiwanese supplier.
CIP called it a sign of strong execution capabilities and proof they can deliver large-scale, complex energy projects.
But they are not stopping there.
Fengmiao 2… six hundred megawatts… is already in development.
Taiwan is aiming for a major boost in large-scale renewable energy by 2030.
And that is the state of the wind industry for February 2, 2026
Join us tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.
While Raskin’s bill sounds good, this “Whack-a-Mole” approach to preventing dishonesty in government is doomed to failure. Trump and his criminal administration will always find new ways to cheat.
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Court Keeps GE on Vineyard Wind, France Plans Huge Wind Farm
Allen covers GE Vernova ordered to stay on Vineyard Wind, TotalEnergies filing for France’s largest renewable project, Spain’s repowering grants, and Dajin’s Hong Kong stock debut.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
Good Monday.
Wind energy made news this week from Boston courtrooms…
to the coast of Normandy …
to the stock exchange floors of Hong Kong.
Let us start in Massachusetts.
A Boston judge has once again told GE VERNOVA it cannot walk away from VINEYARD WIND.
To understand why GE VERNOVA wants out…
you have to look at the money.
VINEYARD WIND owes GE VERNOVA three hundred and sixty million dollars
on a one-point-two-billion-dollar turbine supply contract.
VINEYARD WIND is withholding that payment.
GE VERNOVA says it has the contractual right to walk when it is not paid.
In February, they sent VINEYARD WIND a termination notice.
VINEYARD WIND sued.
In April, Judge PETER KRUPP issued an injunction ordering GE to stay.
GE VERNOVA came back and asked the judge to reconsider.
Vernova pointed to statements from state officials and VINEYARD WIND’s own parent company describing the eight-hundred-and-six-megawatt project as essentially complete.
If the project is done, GE argued, there is no harm in letting us leave.
Judge KRUPP did not buy it.
Here is why this matters so much to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
VINEYARD WIND is the largest offshore wind project in New England.
It is owned jointly by Spain’s IBERDROLA
and Denmark’s COPENHAGEN INFRASTRUCTURE PARTNERS.
It began initial operations just this past February…
after the developer won a separate court fight to keep federal construction permits intact.
Sixty-two turbines.
A four-point-five-billion-dollar investment.
The anchor project for offshore wind in the entire region.
The judge found that GE VERNOVA’s proprietary expertise
is still needed to bring those turbines to full operational capacity.
Pull GE’s more than two hundred employees and subcontractors off the job…
and the project’s financing structure could collapse.
Massachusetts Governor MAURA HEALEY has weighed in publicly.
The state has too much riding on this project to let it unravel in court.
GE VERNOVA still has its appeal of the April injunction pending.
But for now… the turbines keep turning.
Now let us cross the Atlantic.
Off the coast of Normandy, France…
TOTALENERGIES has filed for government authorization
of a massive offshore wind farm called CENTRE MANCHE ENERGIES.
This will be France’s largest renewable energy project… ever.
One-point-five gigawatts of offshore wind.
Located more than forty kilometers off the Normandy coast.
Four-point-five billion euros in investment.
Up to twenty-five hundred construction jobs over three years.
Once running, the wind farm will generate
roughly six terawatt-hours of clean electricity per year…
enough to power more than one million French homes.
TOTALENERGIES was awarded this project by the French government
eight months ago.
Filing for authorization is the next milestone on the path to construction.
Meanwhile… across the Pyrenees in Spain…
The Spanish government has awarded grants for eighty wind repowering projects
totaling two-point-four gigawatts of capacity.
With Nearly four hundred and sixty million euros in subsidies.
The goal: replace older turbines with more efficient technology by twenty-thirty.
The names on the award list read like a who’s who of European wind energy.
IBERDROLA… STATKRAFT… EDP…
ENEL GREEN POWER… NATURGY…
RWE … and others.
IBERDROLA alone picked up four hundred megawatts of new capacity.
And this repowering wave is not just replacing old machines.
Some projects are swapping out turbines that were once the industry standard…
one-point-five and two-megawatt machines…
for the far more powerful equipment available today.
The industry is not just building forward.
It is rebuilding smarter.
And finally… a story from the other side of the world.
A Chinese manufacturer of offshore wind foundations and towers
called DAJIN HEAVY INDUSTRY
made its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this past Friday.
The share sale raised up to eight hundred and forty-seven million dollars.
DAJIN claims a notable distinction:
it says it ranked as Europe’s largest offshore wind foundation supplier
by monopile sales value in the first half of twenty twenty-five.
The company plans to use more than half the proceeds
to expand its deep-sea wind power services…
and one-fifth to build an assembly facility in Europe.
As we know wind energy is continues to push forward.
On every front.
And that is the state of the wind industry for the eighth of June, twenty twenty-six.
Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.
Court Keeps GE on Vineyard Wind, France Plans Huge Wind Farm
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