Virginia's 2.6GW Wind Farm Survives Trump's Stop Order

Five massive offshore wind farms are back in business after federal judges ruled that emergency stop-work orders were illegal.

The biggest winner is Virginia's Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, a 2.6-gigawatt wind farm located 27 miles off the coast. When completed this year, its 176 turbines will generate enough clean electricity to power roughly 660,000 homes without taking up any land.

The project started way back in 2013 when Dominion Energy secured the offshore lease. They tested the waters in 2020 with two small turbines that worked beautifully, powering 3,000 homes.

Those extra years of preparation paid off big. The full-size turbines they're installing now are more than twice as powerful, each generating 14.7 megawatts of electricity.

Construction kicked off in 2023 and was humming along until December 22, when the Interior Department slapped the project with an emergency stop-work order. Four other Atlantic Coast projects got hit too: Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind in Rhode Island, and Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind in New York.

The developers didn't back down. They took their cases to federal court in January, and one by one, judges ruled in their favor.

The legal victory came with a price tag, though. The month-long delay cost Dominion $228 million in equipment storage, contract penalties, and idle workers. Tariffs on steel and other materials added another $137 million.

Why This Inspires

Despite the setback, Dominion is still on track to deliver electricity from the first batch of turbines in March. The remaining turbines will go online later this year.

These five projects represent years of careful planning, billions in investment, and thousands of jobs. They survived political headwinds because the law protected them, courts upheld that law, and the companies building them refused to give up.

The projects also show how far offshore wind technology has come. Each new turbine is more powerful and efficient than the last, turning ocean breezes into reliable clean energy.

Virginia got an extra boost from strong local support. Even with political drama at the federal level, having state leaders championing the project helped keep momentum going.

Now all five wind farms are racing to completion, ready to prove that offshore wind works at massive scale.