Equinor pushes Empire Wind first power to first half of 2027 on vessel delays

The delay does not come from the seabed or the turbines. All 54 foundations are in place, along with the offshore substation and the cable work, according to the company's update. The installation campaign itself remains. The remaining work is to lift 54 Vestas 15MW machines. Equinor now expects that work to start next year.

For New York, that means several more months without 810 megawatts feeding the city's grid through Brooklyn. Equinor says the project will generate enough electricity for roughly 500,000 homes once it runs. Neither Equinor nor its contractors have given a firm date for the first turbine lift beyond next year. The company says the slip does not change its spending total or the timing of its federal tax credits. The schedule is the part that moved.

What slipped, and by how much

Equinor describes Empire Wind as approximately 80% complete. Chief financial officer Torgrim Reitan told investors the remaining work is mostly offshore installation, and said the timing had moved.

"Most of the remaining project scope relates to offshore turbine installation, which is expected to start next year. This is a bit later than planned."

The foundations, the substation and the export cables were all in place before the turbine campaign began. Equinor lists turbine installation as the bulk of what remains.

The Jones Act bottleneck

The installation vessel at the centre of the campaign is Maersk Viridis. Seatrium built it in Singapore and delivered it earlier this year. Because it is foreign-built, it cannot move turbine components between US points under the Jones Act. Components therefore travel from the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal on US-built barges and tugs that connect directly to the vessel offshore.

Those feeder vessels are where the schedule broke. Edison Chouest Offshore is developing two sets of articulated tugs and barges for the campaign. Bollinger Shipyards is building them. Maersk Viridis arrived off Pascagoula, Mississippi, in August for testing and preparations. But the US-built support craft were not ready in time.

The money that did not move

Equinor has previously estimated total investment at approximately $7.5 billion. That figure includes redevelopment of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. The company says the revised schedule does not change total capital expenditure. Some spending shifts from 2026 into 2027, however.

The tax credits keep their timing. Equinor expects about $2.5 billion in US investment tax credits. It expects roughly $2 billion in 2027 and the remaining $500 million in 2028. It says the new construction schedule should not affect when those credits land.

Two years of stop-work orders

The federal government tried twice to halt construction. The first order came in April 2025. It ended the following month. A second suspension followed in December 2025. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management then stopped work on Empire Wind and four other projects over national security concerns.

Equinor challenged that suspension in federal court. It secured preliminary relief that allowed construction to continue. Its third-quarter statements say the court dismissed the case on 30 September 2026. That came after the suspension order expired. After judges rejected the emergency orders, work has continued on the other four projects covered by the December order, CleanTechnica reported.

What happens next

Equinor expects turbine installation to begin next year. The company disclosed no month. The site lies about 14 miles south of Long Island. The power will enter New York City's grid through Brooklyn.

Empire Wind is one of the few US offshore projects still under construction. Canary Media reported that Ørsted's Revolution Wind reached full capacity in October. That project sits off Connecticut and Rhode Island. It was the third utility-scale project to do so. BloombergNEF now expects 5.9 gigawatts of US offshore wind by 2035. That is down from the 39 gigawatts it projected before Trump took office in January 2025.

Dominion's Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind stood at 85% complete in its third-quarter update on 30 October. It had 44 of its 176 turbines installed, CleanTechnica reported, citing Maritime Executive.