The once-promising U.S. offshore wind industry is in a precarious state. First came a series of post-COVID economic challenges that led developers to cancel or delay some projects. Then President Trump took office in January, and immediately set about trying to fulfill a campaign promise to halt the industry.
Trump paused new permitting, effectively bringing all but a few projects up and down the Atlantic coast to a standstill. His administration also issued stop work orders to two projects under construction, and threatened to revoke key permits for several others nearing construction.
With all the twists and turns, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. So here are seven key numbers that explain why many state leaders and environmentalists in New England are concerned about the fate of offshore wind, and what’s at stake if the region’s first two utility scale projects — Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind — don’t come fully online next year as expected.
30,000 megawatts
The amount of wind power New England could need by mid-century
For the first time in nearly two decades, New England’s grid operator expects electricity use to start rising. The growth in demand could begin as soon as this year, and continue as more people install electric heat pumps for home heating and cooling, and buy electric vehicles. By 2050, the region could require twice as much electricity at peak hours as it does today.
To help meet this new demand, several states in New England are banking on offshore wind. By some estimates, the region will need 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind power by mid-century — that’s roughly the amount of electricity that can currently be produced by all of the existing power plants, onshore wind farms and large-scale solar farms in New England.
In Massachusetts alone, officials expect offshore wind to provide more than 50% of the state’s power needs by 2050.
Offshore wind is already a piece of New England’s energy grid, albeit a very small one. But the region’s first two utility-scale projects, Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind, are under construction and could be fully online by early next year.
Calculating the electricity output of an offshore wind project is challenging because wind speeds vary, and turbines aren’t always spinning. But to keep things simple, when energy experts talk about wind farms — and for that matter, all power plants — they describe them in terms of their maximum possible output.
In the case of Vineyard Wind, the project’s 62 turbines will be capable of producing 806 megawatts under ideal conditions. For Revolution Wind, 65 turbines will be able to produce up to 704 megawatts. Taken together, the two projects could generate 1,510 megawatts, or about enough electricity to power 750,000 homes in the region.
That may not seem like a ton of power, but when the Trump administration halted construction on Revolution Wind in August, ISO New England, which manages the region’s electric grid, issued a statement warning there could be electric reliability issues (read: a greater risk of power outages) if the project doesn’t come online as expected. The same goes for Vineyard Wind, said Matt Kakley, a spokesperson for ISO New England.
While homes powered is one way to think about offshore wind farms, perhaps a more meaningful metric is their role within the larger New England electric grid.
Right now, if all the power plants, utility-scale solar farms and existing wind projects in New England were firing at full capacity, they’d generate about 29,000 megawatts. This means that if Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind come online as expected, their collective 1,510 megawatts will represent 4.9% of the region’s capacity to generate electricity — a small, but meaningful contribution to the regional electric grid.
Building an offshore wind farm requires all sorts of construction workers — pile drivers, electricians, iron workers, to name few — and several wind developers have promised to fill many of these positions with union workers. However, many of these positions are temporary and last only during the construction process.
As of July 2025, Vineyard Wind has supported about 3,500 jobs, according to David Borges, president of Springline Research Group, which analyzes employment data for the company. Borges said about 42% of those jobs were union positions.
In September alone, hundreds of people were working on the project, stationed either at either at the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal, out at sea installing turbines, or at the company’s Operations and Management headquarters on Martha’s Vineyard.
The jobs data for Revolution Wind is less detailed, but according to the company, the project has so far supported more than 2,000 jobs, half for union workers.
Long-term, these projects will employ far fewer people. Vineyard Wind estimates it will provide 90 full-time jobs at its Operations and Management headquarters on Martha’s Vineyard, while Revolution Wind expects to employ 32 to 58 full-time workers at its project headquarters in Rhode Island.
New England states aren’t just counting on offshore wind to produce power — they’re expecting it to produce carbon-free power that will help meet their climate goals.
To quantify this benefit, the government uses a measurement known as “emissions avoided.” It takes into account any emissions produced during the construction and operation of a project, and then compares that to the pollution that would have been emitted if the same amount of power was generated from a fossil fuel power plant.
Every year that Vineyard Wind 1 operates, it’s expected to result in a net reduction of 1.63 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to taking 325,000 cars off the road for a year.
Every year that Revolution Wind operates, it’s expected to result in a net reduction of 1.38 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s equivalent to removing 278,206 cars from the road for a year.
Over 30 to 35 years, these two wind farms are expected to help New England avoid more than 97 million metric tons of climate-warming pollution, roughly the emissions produced annually by 22.6 million cars or 254 natural gas fired power plants.
While offshore wind critics frequently lament the intermittent nature of the technology, newly released data from the 12-turbine South Fork Wind project near New York shows the wind does blow most of the time off the coast of the Northeast. In fact, the data shows the 132-megawatt wind farm, which just completed its first full year of operation, produced electricity more than 92% of the time.
Power plants — wind or otherwise — don’t operate at peak generation 100% of the time, so their performance is often measured by what’s known as “capacity factor.” This metric compares the amount of energy a wind farm or other power plant generates over a certain period of time, to the maximum amount of power it could theoretically produce. Nuclear power plants have the highest capacity rating among the existing power fleet, clocking in at about 92%, according to the federal government.
South Fork Wind averaged 46.4% over its first 12 months of operation. In March and April 2025, the wind farm achieved an average capacity factor of about 60% — putting it on a par with modern natural gas-fired power plants (59.9%).
Over the last 15 years, these southern New England states have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into building the specialized ports, job training programs and supply chains required to support a robust regional offshore wind industry. Wind developers and the federal government have kicked in millions as well, driving economic growth in cities such as New London and New Bedford.
– Massachusetts
Since 2011, Massachusetts has invested more than $390 million in offshore wind. Most of that money has flowed through the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, which is funded primarily by a combination of taxpayer money and a surcharge on residents’ electric bills.
According to the MassCEC, about $347 million has been spent on infrastructure and ports for offshore wind. This includes almost $150 million to build the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal, the country’s first offshore wind staging port, and $8.2 million to build the wind turbine testing facility in Charlestown. (The state has committed $53 million to expand the New Bedford terminal and $10 million to expand the turbine blade testing facility.) MassCEC has also awarded $135 million in competitive grants for projects like building a second specialized staging port in Salem and upgrading shipyard and port infrastructure in southeast Massachusetts.
Beyond that, MassCEC has spent $20.5 million on job training programs, $5.6 million to help develop a local offshore wind supply chain and close to $17 million on offshore wind-related science and research.
Connecticut has directly invested $211,000,000 in the offshore wind industry, according to the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development. This money contributed to the redevelopment of State Pier in New London to create a staging ground for offshore wind projects.
– Rhode Island
According to Rhode Island’s Executive Office of Commerce, the state has spent more than $100,000,000 on offshore wind-related investments.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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