A federal judge in Boston has dealt another blow to the Trump administration’s offshore wind crackdown, granting Vineyard Wind a preliminary injunction to resume construction of the 806MW project.

US District Judge Brian Murphy ruled that the 95% complete Vineyard Wind, which is already producing electricity and feeding it to the New England grid, showed “a strong likelihood of success and would suffer irreparable harm from the Interior Department’s late December stop-work order”.

The judge also criticised BOEM for failing to “adequately explain or justify the decision to halt construction.”

The project, developed by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, filed the lawsuit on January 15. It welcomed the ruling and will now coordinate with contractors, federal authorities, and stakeholders to safely restart operations while delivering critical clean power.

Vineyard Wind is located off the coast of Massachusetts. It will generate renewable energy for over 400,000 homes and businesses while reducing carbon emissions by over 1.6m tons per year.

When completed, it will consist of an array of 62 13MW turbines, spaced one nautical mile apart on an east-west and north-south orientation.

​This ruling marks the fourth victory for the offshore wind sector against Donald Trump’s crusade against wind farms under construction.

Judges have already cleared Revolution Wind, Empire Wind, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind to proceed despite national security claims underpinning the pauses.

The only project still halted by the Trump administration is Ørsted’s Sunrise Wind. The Danish firm filed a lawsuit to challenge the lease suspension order in the first week of January.

The project is nearly 45% complete. It has installed 44 of 84 monopile foundations as well as the offshore converter station. Construction of the onshore electric infrastructure is substantially complete, and near-shore export cables have been installed.

In total, all five projects are worth over $10bn in combined investment and have enough capacity to power over two million homes.