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A federal judge ruled Friday that a job virginia Offshore wind projects likely to resume, third successfully challenged this week trump card Administration before the courts.
The government announced last month that it would suspend leasing in five cities for at least 90 days. east coast Offshore wind projects were canceled due to national security concerns. Its announcement did not disclose specific details of those concerns.
Developer States filed lawsuits to try to block the order. Dominion Energy Virginia, which is developing offshore wind off the coast of Virginia, is the first.
In Virginia federal court on Friday, a judge said he would grant the Richmond-based company’s request for a preliminary injunction, according to a transcript of the hearing. That allowed construction to resume while Dominion Energy’s lawsuit challenging the government order continues.
In federal court in the District of Columbia, a judge ruled this week that construction on the Empire Wind project can also resume New York Norwegian company Equinor’s project, and Danish company Orsted’s Revolution Wind project in Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Large-scale offshore wind farms are key to plans to shift to renewable energy in East Coast states that have limited land for onshore wind turbines or solar arrays. Orsted also sued over the suspension of the Sunrise Winds project in New York.
The fifth project on hold is the Vineyard Wind project under construction in Massachusetts. Vineyard Wind LLC, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, joined other developers on Thursday in launching a challenge to the government. They filed suit in Boston District Court.
The offshore wind project off the coast of Virginia has been under construction since early 2024. It will consist of 176 offshore wind turbines, providing enough electricity to power approximately 660,000 homes.
Dominion Energy argued that the government’s order was “arbitrary and capricious” and unconstitutional. The company said after the hearing that it would now focus on restarting work to ensure the project can start delivering critical energy in just weeks. The company said the project is critical to meeting the surge in energy demand driven by dozens of new data centers.
President Donald Trump considers offshore wind development ugly, but the Virginia Coast Offshore Wind Project is about 27 miles (43 kilometers) off the coast of Virginia Beach.
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