Energy Musings - November 10, 2025

We cover three topics dealing with wind energy. The SouthCoast Wind court decision remanding it for further review; the cost of onshore wind turbine repairs; wind turbines causing climate change.

Oops! Wind Farms Contribute To Climate Change, Not Solve It

With thousands of climate activists assembled in Belém, Brazil, we are learning more about the wind industry. We begin with a discussion of the ongoing turmoil in the U.S. offshore wind industry, exemplified by the recent court case involving SouthCoast Wind. We then get into a report highlighting the significant cost of repairing onshore wind turbines, particularly due to the impact of lightning strikes. This money must be spent, but ultimately it is paid for by ratepayers; otherwise, they will face a landscape of rusting wind turbines, which will produce even more environmental problems.

Finally, we examine how wind farms are increasing the temperature of the land and ocean waters beneath and around them, thereby contributing to global warming. This is contrary to the narrative that wind farms with their “clean” energy will help solve our climate change challenge.

The primary offshore wind industry story last week was a court ruling that the Trump administration could reconsider the Biden-era approval of the SouthCoast Wind project. Formerly known as Mayflower Wind, the 2.4 gigawatt (GW) wind farm, consisting of 150 wind turbines, is located about 20 miles off Nantucket Island. Most of the power has been contracted to Massachusetts utilities, with the balance going to Rhode Island.

The decision was rendered by Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. She ruled that SouthCoast Wind developers will not “suffer immediate and significant hardship” if the wind farm goes through a review of the adequacy of the prior approval. Ocean Winds, a Madrid-based international wind company, is developing SouthCoast Wind. The developer is a joint venture between EDP Renewables, a subsidiary of EDP Group, Portugal’s largest utility company, and ENGIE, a French multinational energy company. The wind project represents another foreign-owned venture, a prominent feature of the U.S. offshore wind industry.

SouthCoast Wind obviously disagreed with Judge Chutkan’s finding. Michael Brown, the company’s CEO, said, “SouthCoast Wind expresses serious concern regarding the decision taken on November 4^th, allowing the remand of its legally approved Construction and Operations Plan.” Brown stated that SouthCoast Wind remains “committed to the rigorous standards that have guided the development of this project.” He also noted that they were examining all their legal options, including appealing the ruling.

On the day Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47^th President of the United States last January, he issued an executive order pausing all leasing of federal waters for offshore wind and paused new or renewed approvals for onshore or offshore wind projects on federal land until the outcome of a “comprehensive assessment and review of federal wind leases and permitting practices.” SouthCoast Wind had been approved by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) three days before the end of the Biden administration.

In response to that directive, in February, SouthCoast Wind told investors that it would likely see a four-year delay for the project under the Trump administration. The project’s lease was acquired in a December 2018 sale conducted by BOEM, and the company claims it has spent $600 million in development, permitting, and lease bonus and rental payments in the interim. Since acquiring the lease, the developers have taken six years to gain approval. But they said it might be another four years before construction could begin. Ten-plus years is a long time to wait for a return on investment, which raises the question of whether Ocean Winds will request an adjustment in the price of the electricity they have contracted to supply.

Nantucket was determined to see that the project was never completed. It filed suit in March and is celebrating the court’s decision. In a statement, the Town of Nantucket wrote, “The court’s ruling affirms the town’s long-standing position that the federal government must take a hard look at potential flaws in the environmental and cultural analysis underpinning offshore wind and permitting decisions.”

The one piece of good news for SouthCoast Wind was that last week, Rhode Island approved the route and landing spot for the project’s two transmission cables that will bring power ashore and deliver it to the region’s power grid.

We recently became aware of a report from Houston-based market research and business strategy consulting firm InstelStore, showing that the wind industry will spend $2.92 billion on repairs this year. The repair bill is estimated to increase to $4.1 billion by 2034, a 40% increase. Wind turbine blades are the largest source of repair expenditures, accounting for 37% of total costs, or over $1 billion. Lightning strikes are the leading source of repair expenditures at $256 million, projected to increase to $333 million by 2034.

Wind turbine repair costs are rising with identifiable issues.

The second leading source of blade repairs is root failures, primarily those related to root insert failures, which necessitate the use of a crane to remove and replace the blade safely. The third leading repair expense is for pitch bearings, yaw bearings, gearbox, and generator repairs. Once again, the cost of yaw bearing repairs is inflated by the need to mobilize a crane to lift the nacelle.

We were intrigued by the data showing that 1-2 megawatt (MW) wind turbines accounted for one-third of the repair costs, primarily driven by lightning strikes. Currently, 2-3 MW wind turbines account for 52.5% of total repair expense. Their repair costs are mainly due to blade root failures. Without seeing the raw data, we suspect the change in the primary source of repair costs reflects the decommissioning of older, small wind turbines. Thus, it is not surprising that the next generation of wind turbines will lead the industry in repair expenses.

The wake from a turbine merges with that of others, contributing to climate change.

Over the past five years, researchers have found increasing evidence that offshore wind farms in the North Sea disrupt moisture transport, contributing to an enhanced warming of the sea surface beneath and surrounding the wind turbines. Not only does this increase the temperature of the sea surface, but the warming also impacts the marine life in the area, which can be critical for fish and shellfish populations. Disrupting marine life can inflict significant costs on the fishing industry due to reduced catches and forced relocation of fishing activities, with additional operating expenses. Similar warming effects are experienced onshore, too. This can contribute to warmer and drier conditions for crops around onshore wind turbines.

A series of research papers focused on Europe and the North Sea demonstrates how a wind turbine extracts momentum from the air. When hundreds of turbines are grouped in a wind farm, the individual turbine wakes merge into a regional wind-speed deficit of 8%-15% that stretches 50-100 kilometers (31 to 62 miles). The graphic above illustrates the wind impact from a single wind turbine and how it interacts with the wakes of other turbines in the wind farm.

The slower wind speed reduces the evaporation of the moisture in the atmosphere. Additionally, offshore, the slower wind speed lifts less moisture from the sea surface. With drier air, there is less rainfall. Drier air warms faster, which can lead to reduced cloud formation. Fewer clouds also contribute to further warming. While daytime temperatures are higher due to the impact of the wind turbine wake, the nighttime temperature increase is even greater.

Much like the International Maritime Organization’s rule that reduced the amount of sulfur allowed in ship fuel has cleaned up the atmosphere over the oceans. This dramatically cleaner atmosphere has contributed to a rise in sea surface temperatures and global warming.

A paper exploring offshore wind farms and the North Sea ecosystem concluded the following:

“Through numerical modelling, the researchers found that the wind wakes produced by offshore wind farms in the North Sea have substantial implications for the marine ecosystem. These wakes result in significant changes in annual primary production, leading to local variations of up to ±10% – not only within the wind farm clusters but also in the surrounding region.”

The conclusion of this study, as well as others, has profound implications for the potential financial harm that offshore wind farms may cause to the local fishing industry. The impact of such studies has not been included in BOEM’s wind farm approval process, nor have they been a factor in the settlement payments by developers for the harm their projects may cause local fishermen. That is likely because the regulators know that the profit margins of offshore wind projects cannot absorb larger payments to fishermen. We hope that skewing the approval process forms part of the review of the wind farm approval process ordered by President Trump.