Orsted has gone to a court based in Washington, D.C. after an order from US President Donald Trump halted offshore construction on its 924MW Sunrise Wind offshore wind farm, a shutdown the company says could ultimately leave it more than $8 billion out of pocket. In its complaint, the Danish developer argues that the presidential order is already triggering losses of over $1 million for every day that activity at the site remains suspended.
In the same filing, Orsted details how far construction had progressed before the stop-work order. Crews had driven 44 monopile foundations out of a planned total of 84, installed the jacket and topside for the offshore converter station, and laid about 16 miles of export cable in waters close to shore.
The interruption comes only a few months after Orsted completed a $9.4 billion rights issue that was intended to provide capital for building the 84-turbine Sunrise Wind array.
According to the documents submitted to the court, offshore work was halted with national security cited as the reason. Orsted says its Marine Affairs team spent 2025 holding weekly coordination meetings with the US Coast Guard, with officials from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement also taking part, including as recently as Monday of the same week the order was issued.
The company’s legal representatives told the court that, during those sessions, neither the Coast Guard nor any of the other federal agencies present indicated national security concerns about Sunrise Wind.
Before the presidential order, Orsted had planned to begin turbine installation at the site toward the end of 2026. In a separate case, the developer has also lodged a complaint and requested an injunction over the halt affecting its neighbouring 704MW Revolution Wind project.
