Today, Sunrise Wind, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ørsted, will file a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the lease suspension order issued on December 22, 2025 by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which will be followed by a motion for a preliminary injunction.
While Sunrise Wind continues to seek to work constructively with the Administration and other stakeholders towards an expeditious and durable resolution of this matter, it believes that the lease suspension order violates applicable law. The Sunrise Wind Project faces substantial harm from a continuation of the lease suspension order. As a result, litigation is a necessary step to protect the rights of the Project.
Sunrise Wind secured all required local, state, and federal permits, following extensive multi-year reviews. As a requirement of the permitting process, the Project engaged in years-long consultation with the U.S. Department of Defense [War] Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Siting Clearinghouse to address potential impacts to national security and defense capabilities from construction through to operation of the Project. Those consultations resulted in a fully executed formal agreement between the Department of War, the Department of the Air Force, and Sunrise Wind outlining mitigation measures by the Project.
Sunrise Wind has spent and committed billions of dollars in reliance upon, and has met the requests of, a thorough review process. Additional federal reviews and approvals included the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Marine Fisheries Service, and many other agencies.
The Project is in advanced stages of construction and is nearly 45 percent complete. The Project has installed 44 of 84 monopile foundations as well as the offshore converter station. Construction of the onshore electric infrastructure is substantially complete, and near-shore export cables have been installed. At the time of the lease suspension order, the Project was expected to begin generating power as soon as October 2026.
At a time of increasing energy demand, the Project will deliver reliable power and increased stability to the electric grid with industry experts forecasting that ratepayers could face increased risks to reliability without the completion of Sunrise Wind. The Project will deliver affordable power at a stable rate to nearly 600,000 homes once fully operational in 2027 under a 25-year contract with the State of New York.
Sunrise Wind has supported thousands of American jobs across construction, operations, shipbuilding, and manufacturing, including more than 1,000 union workers who have already contributed more than 1 million union work hours to this project. Sunrise Wind is a part of Ørsted’s investment into American energy generation, grid upgrades, and port infrastructure, as well as a supply chain, including U.S. shipbuilding and manufacturing extending to more than 40 states.
On January 1, 2026, Revolution Wind, LLC, a 50/50 joint venture between Global Infrastructure Partners’ Skyborn Renewables and Ørsted, made similar filings in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Source: Ørsted
