Massachusetts pushes offshore wind contract negotiations into 2026

2025 is ending much the way it started for offshore wind in Massachusetts: on delay.

Gov. Maura Healey’s administration announced contract negotiations between the state’s electric utilities and two offshore wind developers have yet again been delayed due to upheaval in Washington.

The negotiations had been set to wrap up by the end of the year after a deal wasn’t clinched six months ago but are now extended through June 2026 and appear likely to be frozen for most of if not all of President Trump’s term.

The delay is just the latest to hit Massachusetts since the state selected three projects in September 2024. Vineyard Wind has started delivering power to the grid — the lone wind project in the state to do so — but other projects have not yet moved forward.

That includes the two from this 2024 procurement — from developers Ocean Winds and Avangrid — after state regulators allowed offshore wind contracts to be terminated as hostile economic conditions roiled the industry.

Avangrid and Ocean Winds didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Massachusetts remains committed to an all-of-the-above approach to energy, which includes offshore wind,” Lauren Diggin, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy Resources, said in a statement. “The uncertainty created by the changing federal landscape continues to be a challenge as the utilities and developers work to memorialize the bids in contracts.”

The Republican trifecta in Washington has gutted federal support for offshore wind, halting already-approved projects and ending new federal leases. That has forced some Bay State officials to rethink Massachusetts’s ambitious clean energy goals and the timeline with which they can realistically be achieved.

The Healey administration backed an effort to delay a statutory offshore wind procurement requirement of 5,600 megawatts from 2027 to 2029. And last month lawmakers considered weakening climate commitments to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels in response to cost concerns at home and disruption from Washington.

Even before Trump retook office, though, offshore wind appeared on shaky footing despite a groundswell of support within the state. The developer for Vineyard Wind 2 withdrew the project, and tax incentives designed to spur an offshore wind manufacturing supply chain in Massachusetts have gone unclaimed for two straight years.

How the state plans to increase energy supply to meet growing demand while meeting climate targets and addressing the affordability concerns sweeping the state is still an open question. Massachusetts will likely see an influx of hydropower starting early next year as the long-delayed New England Clean Energy Connect project bringing electricity from Quebec into the region is finalized.

But with offshore wind stalled, Healey has turned to focus on expanding solar supply, thrown support behind nuclear and natural gas, and even explored importing wind from Canada — a complicated and likely expensive endeavor.