Trump Administration’s Stop-Work Order Hits US Offshore Wind Turbine Manufacturer’s Earnings

The US government’s offshore wind construction pause left a dent in GE Vernova’s numbers for the fourth quarter of 2025, which might get deeper if wind turbine works at the Vineyard Wind 1 site offshore Massachusetts are not completed according to the project’s current schedule.

The US wind turbine manufacturer said on 28 January that it had been affected by the stop-work order issued on 22 December 2025, which led to the company booking an incremental accrual in the fourth quarter for costs associated with the delay on the Vineyard Wind project.

During an earnings call, GE Vernova’s CFO, Ken Parks, said that EBITDA losses in GE Vernova’s Wind business unit were USD 225 million (approximately EUR 189 million) in the fourth quarter, below the Q4 2024 levels, mostly due to higher offshore contract losses, including the impact of the recently issued order to halt construction of all offshore wind projects in the US.

For 2025, losses in the Wind unit were around USD 200 million (approx. EUR 168 million) higher than GE Vernova’s expectations from December, also driven by the stop-work order the US government imposed on 22 December.

“Until that point, the team was on a path to achieve these expectations as they worked to complete the Vineyard Wind project in early January. The order created a potential delay of at least 90 days, and we accrued in 4Q the estimated incremental contract losses for the extension of installation work”, said Ken Parks.

“As a reminder, the project has 62 turbines in total, and we have made significant progress, with only ten turbines needing blades and one turbine left to be installed at the time of the stop work order. At any time the order is in place, we are unable to execute the project. This and the resulting incremental costs are excused under a declaration of force majeure prompted by the government action.”

Sparks added that, if permitted to resume work soon following Vineyard Wind receiving an injunction of the stop-work order, the installation of the remaining turbine/blades could be completed by the end of March.

“At the end of March, we’ll lose access to the vessel required to complete installation of the remaining turbines. If we are unable to complete the installation of the remaining 11 turbines, 2026 Wind revenue could be negatively impacted by approximately $250 million due to our inability to bill the customer for those turbines. Because of our contract loss accruals and protection from incremental costs resulting from the stop work order, we do not anticipate significant additional negative EBITDA impacts for the Vineyard Wind project beyond the amounts already recorded”, GE Vernova’s CFO said.

The risk to the project completion due to the suspension of construction activities was also stressed by Vineyard Wind, a 50:50 joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), in its legal challenge to the suspension order, filed on 15 January. The developer said the 806 MW wind farm was 95 per cent complete and is set to be fully constructed by 31 March as per its current project schedule, under which the installation vessel was also chartered.

The ten installed wind turbines on which GE Vernova is to replace blades are part of the blade replacement programme according to the revised Construction and Operations Plan (COP) for the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm, approved by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) in January 2025.

Blade replacement follows the root cause analysis (RCA) conducted by the wind turbine manufacturer regarding the blade failure that occurred in July 2024, which was attributed to a manufacturing defect. This led to GE Vernova kicking off the replacement of blades manufactured at its plant in Canada on 22 wind turbines installed at Vineyard Wind 1.

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