Attracting 8 million annual visitors to its popular beach and bustling boardwalk, Ocean City, Maryland, is a cornerstone of the state’s culture and economy — but the view from the beach will change if the state government has its way.
Instead of looking out at just the sky and waves, visitors could one day see tiny toothpick-like structures — windmills, actually — on the horizon. That prospect has prompted a fierce political battle over an ambitious, 114-turbine wind energy project that aims to generate renewable power for over 700,000 homes.
Offshore wind developer US Wind leased the federal waters after winning a 2014 auction. The U.S. Department of the Interior approved the company’s construction and operations plan in December 2024, greenlighting the Momentum Wind project, which could generate over 2,000 megawatts of clean energy in addition to the MarWin turbines.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has defended the project as a key way to increase the local energy supply in a state that historically imports about 40% of its electricity.
“Maryland is serious about offshore wind — not just because of what it means for our environment but also because of what it means for our economy,” Moore said last year.
Yet while the state attempts to implement offshore wind capable of paving the way for a clean energy future, opponents on two fronts have fought to stop the project.
The founder of the Stop Offshore Wind campaign – Kevin Gibbs, owner of the Dough Roller restaurants in Ocean City– contends the presence of the windmills will hurt tourism and fishing in the region.
“You’re going to have an economic impact on families that have been here for generations,” he said.
In addition to local pushback from community members like Gibbs, President Donald Trump issued an executive order during his first month in office withdrawing leases for offshore wind projects. A federal judge overturned that order in December, but US Wind has paused design work on the project as it awaits the resolution of a separate federal court case in which Gibbs’ group and the Trump administration argue the federal permit for the project should be withdrawn.
“No law would impose civil or criminal liability on US Wind if it continued to develop the project,” U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher wrote in a recent decision in the case. “It simply has made a business decision not to do so in light of the political headwinds it perceives.”
How it works
To hear Julie Lundquist tell it, offshore wind makes sense off Maryland’s coast.
“This is a technology that we know how to build,” said Lundquist, professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s only getting more efficient, and it’s very well-suited for deployment in many locations.”
Lundquist likened the technical process to that of old-school windmills with modern blades similar to airplane wings. The rotation of the blades generates an electric current which travels through a hub into the grid.
Offshore wind tends to cost about 50% more than onshore wind, according to a study from the University of Maryland — with certain studies estimating an even greater difference. But Lundquist pointed out two key advantages. Population centers tend to be on coasts, which simplifies the transmission of offshore electricity. The ocean surface also helps produce steadier, more efficient winds.
A supporter of the project, Maryland Del. Lorig Charkoudian, said offshore wind takes some pressure off the challenging storage of other forms of energy like solar power.
“It blows harder at night when there’s no solar, and it blows harder in the winter, when there’s less solar,” said Charkoudia, a Democrat from Montgomery County. “The more you have complementary production, the less storage you’re going to need.”
Lundquist also said studies in Europe indicate the ecological footprint of the turbines may not be entirely negative. Research in the North Sea shows the underwater structure can act as a reef, attracting barnacles and other small marine creatures.
While the U.S. trudges forward on offshore wind, Europe has installed over 6 gigawatts of offshore energy capability in the past two years, bringing the total number of operating offshore farms to over 150.
“We would like to make sure that the U.S. develops a viable industry, so that American workers can participate in this industry and take part in building that going forward,” Lundquist said.
If completed, Maryland’s project will be a significant step toward former President Joe Biden’s goal of establishing 30 gigawatts of energy potential via offshore wind by 2030. Biden’s plan would see 10 million homes powered with clean energy, enough to avoid 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.
But that goal in Maryland is in trouble for both local and national reasons.
Local pushback
For many Marylanders, Ocean City is a vacation destination. Situated on the easternmost part of Worcester County, the town’s population swells to about 300,000 during the peak travel season.
Business owner Gibbs is one of the 7,000 year-round residents who call Ocean City home.
“It’s where I want to raise my kids,” he said. “I’ve got a daughter on the way and I want her to have clean oceans and fresh seafood.”
Gibbs owns and operates The Dough Roller, a popular restaurant with three locations. Gibbs’ father founded the restaurant in 1980 and it quickly became a recognizable staple for vacationers and locals alike.
Working with local business owners, nonprofit organizations and residents, Gibbs started the Stop Offshore Wind campaign, which Ocean City and Worcester County have endorsed.
The group is primarily concerned with the impact an impeded view could have on the tourist economy and with potential harm to fishing and marine life. According to city documents, the 938-foot-tall turbines will be 10.7 miles offshore, close enough to be in plain view from the beach.
“You’re going to have hundreds of red blinking lights in the middle of your moon,” Gibbs said. “Your sunrises are going to be blocked with it.”
Gibbs said he is worried Ocean City may struggle to compete on the global stage of tourism if visitors are unwilling to rent homes in plain view of offshore turbines.
However, proponents of offshore wind argue the impact on tourism would be either nonexistent or minimal. US Wind maintains that economic studies in places where offshore turbines have been installed show no adverse effects on tourism.
The Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island was even linked to an increase in nightly reservations and occupancy rates during peak tourism months, according to a study from the University of Rhode Island.
Some wind farms have even become tourist destinations themselves. Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts offers field trips to its facility, and at least five companies offer boat tours of wind farms in Great Britain.
The legal battle
Local opponents of the wind project now have a friend in the White House.
In October 2024, Ocean City and several co-plaintiffs filed a lawsuit challenging federal approvals for the project’s construction and operations plan. The motion alleged the Department of the Interior failed to adequately consider the environmental impact, violating the Administrative Procedure Act and several environmental laws. In July, a federal judge allowed five of the plaintiffs’ claims to continue.
A few months later, Trump ordered the withdrawal of all offshore leases set aside for wind development until agencies could conduct further review, endangering Maryland’s project as well as others along the coast.
Seventeen states and Washington, D.C., challenged the order under the Administrative Procedure Act. In a major victory for supporters of wind energy, a federal court in Massachusetts struck down Trump’s order in December on the grounds it was arbitrary and capricious.
“Indeed, the agency defendants candidly concede that the sole factor they considered in deciding to stop issuing permits was the president’s direction to do so,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Patti B. Saris.
Work on similar offshore projects in Virginia, New York and Rhode Island resumed in January after recent judicial victories for offshore wind.
But in Maryland, the Trump administration has also joined Ocean City’s lawsuit against the Department of the Interior and US Wind, in which the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is seeking to backtrack its previous approval for the project. The bureau claims that after a comprehensive review of the permit, its officials underestimated the impact the turbines would have on search and rescue operations as well as commercial fishing.
In response, Charkoudian and other Maryland lawmakers joined to form the Offshore Wind Alliance to support the project.
Charkoudian said Trump’s avid opposition to offshore wind is indicative of its strength.
“Trump, who is doing everything he can to line the pockets of his billionaire fossil fuel buddies, is going particularly hard after offshore wind,” she said.
Charkoudian emphasized in addition to lowering rates, offshore wind has the ability to revitalize manufacturing jobs.
US Wind is currently developing a factory to produce monopiles — large, steel foundations driven into the sea floor to support turbines — at Sparrows Point in Baltimore County, which the company said could support over 500 jobs. The location was previously home to Bethlehem Steel, a faded manufacturing giant that was dissolved in 2003.
Charkoudian encouraged the state to continue its support for the project and plan for future offshore wind sites in the hope that a future federal administration will support the technology.
The future
With the Trump administration determined to stop offshore wind, the technology’s future in Maryland — and the United States — remains uncertain. While many lawmakers and academics point to it as one of many solutions to reduce the state’s energy deficit in a sustainable manner, the lengthy process to approve and construct offshore farms is susceptible to delays from the executive branch.
The U.S. lags significantly behind Europe on offshore wind. While only three farms have started operations along the U.S. East Coast (with more in the permitting and construction phase), the United Kingdom alone has 51 farms operating, leading the way for Europe’s 37 gigawatts of energy capacity.
With the current opposition at the federal level, it’s unlikely the U.S. will catch up soon. But according to author Jim Beach, who wrote “The Real Environmentalists,” turning a profit is the key to providing clean energy.
“Entrepreneurs are already solving the problem,” he said. “They’re not sitting around waiting on grants.”
However, Beach said the increasing cost of constructing offshore wind turbines has limited private investment in the sector, while entrepreneurs have doubled down on nuclear power.
“The big companies that sell these huge installs are only going to make it work if there’s a subsidy and government involvement,” he said.
While data from S&P Global points to growing private equity investment in offshore wind, these funds typically come once most of the legwork has been done and the project is nearing the finish line.
In Maryland, much of the legwork is done — but the future of offshore wind remains in the hands of the courts.
Nancy Sopko, US Wind’s vice president of external affairs, said in a statement that the company “remains confident in the validity of all permits issued for our project, and we will continue to vigorously defend them in court.”