'Banana republic': Industry horror at Trump attack on Orsted offshore wind project

The global wind industry is reacting in horror to the US stop work order against Orsted’s Revolution Wind project, with the country being labelled a “banana republic” whose President Donald Trump is using “scandalous” extortion tactics.

Even after the Trump Administration’s since lifted stop work order against Equinor’s Empire Wind project off New York earlier this year – Orsted, along with many others in the industry, would have hoped hitting a project already 80% complete with such an order would be a bridge too far.

But nothing is too far for a president whose administration seems intent on putting an end to the wind power industry in the US.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management cited “national security” concerns in its stop work order issued late Friday for the 704MW Revolution Wind project, of which 45 of the total 65 Siemens Gamesa turbines have already been installed off Connecticut and Rhode Island.

But while such concerns have been raised around the use of Chinese components in wind turbines, IntelStor CEO Philip Totaro highlighted on LinkedIn that Revolution Wind, which counts Global Infrastructure Partner's Skyborn Renewables as a co-developer, is being supplied by entirely Western companies.

“I am curious as to which of the supply chain companies that are involved with the Revolution Wind project supposedly represent a national security risk to the USA?” Totaro asked.

“Is it the companies based in the USA? The United Kingdom? Companies that are located in EU member countries like Denmark, Spain, France, or the Netherlands? Or perhaps Worley, based in Australia, but with a US subsidiary, similar to most of the EU companies as well?”

“You know the drill Orsted,” he wrote. “Out of our cold dead hands this time.”

John MacAskill, Group Growth Director at ABL Group, concurred, writing: “No new evidence. No new risks disclosed. Just an obviously political intervention that strands billions in assets, drives up idle costs, and delays clean power for 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut.

The stop work order for Revolution Wind is a “visible reminder that in today’s US, even ‘banked’ projects or investments carry an unquantifiable political discount. To be impacted by a whim.”

For Orsted the timing is “a bit brutal,” he said, as revenues under long-term Power Purchase Agreements for the company will be pushed back and idle costs for vessels, crews and suppliers will “spiral”.

“Investor confidence is shaken again,” he added, just weeks after a rights issue “meant to restore stability.”

Orsted was forced into that rights issue after it could not find a buyer for a stake in its 924MW Sunrise Wind project off Long Island, New York. Investors deemed the project too risky in the context of Trump’s unprecedented assaults against the sector. Those risks have now been realised, albeit for now in relation to a different Orsted project.

With the Trump Administration having now targeted Revolution Wind, a similar attack on Sunrise Wind now appears to be a case of ‘not if, but when’.

Karim Megherbi, founding executive director of UAE-based renewables origination platform Orisun Invest and a board member for the Global Solar Council, wrote on LinkedIn that the US has become a “banana republic” under Trump, a comment echoed by Rob Budny, a wind industry veteran who now runs a US battery storage supplier.

Jamie Dickerson, a senior director at US clean energy non-profit Acadia Center, who was previously chief of staff at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, said that these “baseless, coercive work stoppage orders for energy projects are a scandalous abuse of power and tantamount to extortion.”

These represent a “shakedown of states and communities who have poured literally years into developing and permitting sound projects that will improve grid reliability and reduce costs for ratepayers,” he said, adding that the stoppage will “quickly become the bogus pretext for extracting some concession” from Connecticut and Rhode Island.

This is straight out of what Dickerson noted appears to be a developing Trump playbook for US offshore wind projects.

It remains to be seen what price he might seek to extract from Connecticut and Rhode Island, Orsted or even Denmark for lifting the stop work order.

Orsted, for its part, has threatened taking the Trump Administration to court. But no guarantees lie there in any case. Even if Orsted won, ignoring the damage and costs to Revolution Wind in the meantime, Trump has ignored court orders in his second term in, for example, the unprecedented deportations of 200 people to a prison in El Salvador. And the US Supreme Court is in any case stacked with Trump appointees.

Banana republic indeed.