VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Bruised by President Trump’s aggressive efforts to shut down offshore wind projects, developers and industry advocates are strategizing on how to reset the industry and position it to re-emerge in two to four years. 

Speakers and attendees at the International Partnering Forum (IPF) 2025 Conference, while shocked at the pace and ferocity of Trump’s opposition, said they’re optimistic the rapidly rising demand for energy means the federal government eventually will have to harness wind power to meet the nation’s needs. 

Key on their minds was Trump’s announcement upon taking office that the nation is facing an energy emergency, then soon after taking steps to shut down offshore wind projects. He issued a memorandum essentially freezing projects in the permitting process and has stopped New York’s Empire Wind mid-construction. He also stalled New Jersey’s Atlantic Shores project, asking for new information even though the project received its final approval in October. (See Feds Move to Halt Construction of Empire Wind 1 and EPA Puts Hold on Atlantic Shores OSW Permit.) 

Developers such as Equinor, Ørsted and Vestas have given grim assessments of the U.S. market. (See Equinor, Ørsted, Vestas Say US OSW Market in Trouble.) Speakers at the IPF conference sought to portray the situation variously as a “pause,” a “reset” or a moment when the industry could use the forced downtime to plan for the future. 

“Our job, all of our jobs, is to keep pushing so that regulators, citizens and politicians will realize that offshore wind, it’s not optional — we have to have it,” Oceantic Network CEO Liz Burdock said April 29, opening the conference’s second day. 

“We’re not just here to trade business cards,” she said. “We’re here to unlock the full force of our collective creativity, to rethink, redesign and reignite the U.S. offshore wind industry.” 

“But in our fight, we must adapt and adapt fast, while we grapple with indecision, economic uncertainty and political turbulence,” she said. “Our opponents are loud and they’re organized and they’re holding elected leaders accountable to their demands. It’s time we respond with strength on strength. No more passive storytelling, no more silence while the narrative is shaped by others. We must amplify the truth.” 

Sam Eaton, CEO of RWE’s U.S. Offshore Wind operation, said in an interview with Burdock that a “reset” period will enable it to sharpen its purpose and address its core issues. 

“It’s important that we don’t lose sight of the success that we’ve had here in the U.S.,” Eaton said. “But now we face a question as to where the next evolution of offshore wind is going to be, and we need to think about this fundamental question: Are we developing a technology that will serve an important niche, or are we developing a technology will scale to an American mainstream?” 

States’ Initiative

Before Trump moved against the OSW sector, President Biden issued leases for 60 GW of power, said Sam Salustro, senior vice president of market and policy strategy at Oceantic Network, adding that “state demand exceeds about 115 (GW) at this point.” The U.S. has one commercial-scale project operating, South Fork in New York, and projects totaling about 19 GW of power have full federal approval and are heading toward completion. 

Among them is Dominion Energy’s 2.6-GW project Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW), which has two pilot turbines in operation about 27 miles off the Virginia shore. With 176 turbines, the project is designed to power 600,000 homes. Construction is expected to be completed in 2026. 

In Massachusetts, Vineyard Wind is producing about 50 MW of energy. Construction is scheduled to be completed in 2025 on the full 800-MW output, Elizabeth Mahony, commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, said at the conference. 

“We’re actively engaged right now with our legislature, with our governor and with the industry to make sure that despite what might happen in D.C., that Massachusetts will continue to be a place for the industry to come this year and next year, or for the next 10 years,” Mahony said. 

Several speakers said that given the federal government’s position, states need to take a larger role to push the sector forward. “They are the market movers, and they have continued to act over the last few months,” Salustro said. 

Another key factor is collaboration, said Megan Outten, policy manager for the Maryland Energy Administration. 

“That goes down to supply chain, knowing how we can support some of our neighboring states, in Delaware, Virginia, New Jersey, and where we can fit in,” she said. “Not every state is going to be their own regional hub for supply chain. We’re going to have specialists in each state,” some for the supply chain, and others for transmission issues, she said. 

The potential benefits of collaboration were underscored by the release on the conference opening day of a strategic action plan by the Northeast States Collaborative on Interregional Transmission, which comprises nine states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. The collaborative was formed to explore “opportunities for increased interconnectivity” between ISO-NE, NYISO and PJM. The latest plan outlines an interstate planning process for transmission projects. (See Plan Lays out Steps for State-led Interregional Transmission in Northeast.) 

Part of the plan ensures there are consistent standards — such as for technology — used in procurement through the collaborative members, said Bruce Ho, senior policy adviser of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. 

That could “give confidence to the manufacturers that this is where not just one state is going, but where a whole group of states are going,” he said, adding this approach could lower costs. 

Ready to Fight

Georges Sassine, vice president of large-scale renewables at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), said stakeholders need to understand how this situation is different from the past, when projects became mired in supply chain problems, cost inflation and the legacy of unsustainably low bids. 

“Before, it was a crisis. How do you lead in a crisis?” he said. “Today, our collective leadership challenge is how to lead in a time of uncertainty. And that that requires a completely different reaction.” 

Part of that leadership, he said, can be seen in New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s commitment to vigorously oppose the stop work order issued to halt Empire Wind, and also to keep pursuing wind and transmission projects, and even solicitations. 

“We really have to fight, and we would like to partner with you, the stakeholders, to join us in that fight,” he said. 

“Our goal here is to figure out how do we protect the projects under construction and make sure that they get built?” he said. “The second goal is, how do we make sure that the industry across the board keeps on investing over the next four years, and keeps on building, and then how do we position ourselves to pick back up exponentially, when the industry wants it, whether it’s in the short term or the long term?” 

For all stakeholders, a key element of the pushback, he said, will be “telling the story, a cohesive story, around the value of offshore wind and offshore energy.” 

Derisking Projects

Several speakers said stakeholders need to position wind sources to become routinely accepted as one of the “all-of-the-above” categories of power considered in the public debate.  

Analysts predict a rapid rise in demand from data centers, which consume vast amounts of power, and from electric vehicles and appliances. The closure of fossil-fuel generators across the region highlights the need for more generation. 

“A lot of studies have been coming out over the past couple months that have pointed to the same thing,” Salustro said. “Some estimates are 50% (demand increase) over the next 10 years. Some of it is double over the next 20 or 25 years. Offshore wind is going to be a key part of helping solve this problem of the need for more energy and getting it online fast and soon. Offshore wind is the shovel-ready industry right now. We have projects that are permitted, ready to go.”  

With that in mind, Mark Mitchell, senior vice president for project construction for Dominion, said at the conference that his company has drafted a plan to provide energy to 3 million Virginia homes through an “all-of-the-above energy approach” using OSW, solar, battery power, natural gas generation and small nuclear reactors. 

“Having a variety of generation sources helps maintain reliability by avoiding over-reliance on any given power source,” he said. “It also helps maintain affordability by insulating our customers and the company against outsize price shocks for a particular fuel source or generation component.”  

Still, he added, “renewables are a key element of our strategy,” and the CVOW project is “expected to save customers $3 million of fuel cost over the next 10 years.” 

A representative of Ørsted, which closed two New Jersey projects — Ocean Wind 1 and 2 — in 2023 due in part to rising costs and supply chain issues, offered a more cautious assessment when asked in one forum what trends could affect future projects.