Roger Caiazza
Christopher Walsh’s latest article in the Easthampton Star, South Fork Wind’s Electricity Generation Proves Reliable repeats claims from the developer that the facility provides reliable energy. An infographic prepared for the U.S. Department of War’s Defense Counterintelligence Security Agency, defines malinformation as sabotage because it is based on fact but is used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate. Walsh’s article is based on fact, but the information presented is used out of context to mislead readers into believing that the South Fork offshore wind facility provided reliable electric generation to the grid during this winter’s extreme period.
The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) includes a specific target for 9,000 MW of offshore wind capacity by 2035. Ørsted’s South Fork Wind is the only New York operational offshore wind facility. It has 12 turbines with 132 MW of capacity. There are two other New York offshore wind facilities under construction (Empire Wind 1, 810 MW and Sunrise Wind, 924 MW) but both had work suspended in December when the Trump administration issued a stop-work order suspending the lease. A federal judge issued a temporary injunction in January 2026 allowing construction to resume while the legal case proceeds.Clearly, the Climate Act mandate for 9,000 MW of offshore wind is in jeopardy. The question is whether that is a bad thing or not. Walsh’s article argues that it is a bad thing.
“Reliable” South Fork Wind
Walsh’s article is quoted below with my annotations.
As the Trump administration pledges to appeal all five court rulings that sided with offshore wind farms under construction on the Eastern Seaboard, and Canadian officials call on the industry to shun the United States in favor of the ocean off its shores, developers of South Fork Wind, the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, are pointing to its reliable generation of electricity in its second year of operation and during this winter’s extreme cold.
Renewable advocates focus on energy production, but power systems are built around reliability during peak demand. If you look at the grid through the lens of accredited capacity, that is, capacity that can be relied upon during peak demand – instead of average energy, the resource allocations for different technologies look radically different. This is the energy vs. power capacity distinction that Walsh ignored.
The 12-turbine, 132-megawatt farm, electricity from which makes landfall in Wainscott, achieved a 46.3-percent capacity factor in 2025. “Capacity factor” refers to real-world performance, or the ratio of energy generated versus the maximum theoretical output of an installation running at its full rated capacity around the clock. For offshore wind, typical values are between 20 and 40 percent, reflecting intermittent wind speeds, maintenance downtime, and site efficiency.
In January of this year, South Fork Wind delivered a 52-percent capacity factor, comparable to New York State’s most efficient gas plants. Output at offshore wind farms in the Northeast — South Fork Wind, the smaller Block Island Wind, and Vineyard Wind 1, which is still under construction — is typically at its strongest during winter months, when energy supplies on Long Island are often constrained.
I take exception to the claim that the 52% capacity factor is comparable to gas plants. If a gas plant was only limited by maintenance downtime it can easily achieve an 85-percent annual capacity factor but more importantly they can be dispatched by the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) as necessary to match loads including peak load conditions.
The NYISO January Operations Performance Metrics Monthly Report includes a graph of net statewide wind and solar performance total monthly production and capacity factors (Figure 1). These data show that the January 2026 monthly capacity factors for all New York State wind facilities was 38%, Behind the Meter (BTM) rooftop solar was 3% and the Front of the Meter (FTM) utility-scale solar was 6%. Offshore wind facilities are expected to perform better than onshore wind facilities and this is clearly shown by the South Fork Wind performance.
Figure 1: Net Wind and Solar Performance Total Monthly Production and Capacity Factors
Source: NYISO JanuaryOperations Performance Metrics Monthly Report
The article goes on:
Over the course of 2025, South Fork Wind generated electricity on 99 percent of all days and across 90 percent of all hours, according to its developers, the Danish energy company Orsted and the German company Skyborn Renewables. The developers assert that the wind farm generates electricity sufficient to power 70,000 average-size residences.
These claims have the reliability challenge exactly backwards. South Fork Wind did not generate electricity on 1 percent of all days or at least 3 whole days and across 10 percent or 876 of all hours. The problem is that peak loads are commonly associated with high-pressure systems that suppress wind generation. As a result South Fork Wind was likely unavailable when needed most.
This effect was seen during the January 24 to January 27, 2026 winter storm. Following the storm there was a period of prolonged sub-freezing weather that caused a peak in the electric load. Table 1 lists daily extrapolated statewide capacity factors from Figure 2. Consider January 31 when the statewide capacity factors were BTM solar 2%, FTM solar 9%, and wind 12%. The total daily renewable energy capacity factor was 10% and only provided 2% of the system’s daily load. Data from individual facilities are not available but the hourly statewide data indicate that wind capacity was less than 10% for 13 hours including the morning and evening peak loads.
Table 1: New York Renewable Energy Capacity Factors in late January 2026
Figure 2: Net Wind and Solar Performance Total Daily Production and Capacity Factors
Source: NYISO JanuaryOperations Performance Metrics Monthly Report
Wind Farm Status
The remainder of the article goes on but I think it is a marketing plea by an offshore wind advocate. I don’t want to waste my time responding and yours reading it..
Discussion
If the New York electric system were to rely primarily on wind, solar, and energy storage then this extended period of light winds, low solar availability, and snow-covered solar panels simply cannot provide the power when needed the most. State agencies responsible for electric system reliability agree that a new dispatchable, emissions free resource is needed for these periods but admit that there isn’t any such resource available today. Given that there is no such technology available, proceeding under the assumption that one will magically appear is an enormous risk for reliability.
New York currently has an energy affordability crisis because as of December 2024, over 1.3 million households are behind on their energy bills by sixty-days-or-more, collectively owing more than $1.8 billion. Climate Act costs are already between 8.5 and 13.7% of monthly electric bills. The combined weighted average price revised contracts for the offshore wind projects under construction is $150.15/MWh. NYISO reports that the average New York wholesale electric price in 2025 was about 74.40 dollars per MWh, up from 41.81 dollars per MWh in 2024. Those costs do not include the price of dedicated transmission lines to get the energy to where it is needed. Adding offshore wind at costs double the current cost of electricity will only exacerbate the energy crisis.
Environmental recently published a post that provided inspiration for this article. Misinvestment, Disinvestment, Malinvestment describes the result:
There is no shortage of narratives that:
- suggest natural gas is no better than coal.
- frame nuclear as uniquely catastrophic.
- overstate reliability, firmness, and cost of wind and solar,
- downplay wind and solar intermittency and the need for hydrocarbon, nuclear and/or hydroelectric power backup.
- downplay land use, siting and social effects of wind and solar energy.
These and dozens of other examples ultimately led to an enormous misallocation of taxpayer funds and private capital in the U.S., western Europe, the UK and elsewhere. These energy and climate MDM narratives depressed investment in firm/baseload, dispatchable, inertia-based natural gas and nuclear electricity generation resources, while leading to overinvestment in intermittent, weather-dependent, inverter-based wind and solar energy. In the U.S. alone, the combination of taxpayer funds (in the form of printed government dollars) and private investment in wind and solar energy exceeded $1 trillion dollars between 1999 and 2025.
The number of those installations whose lives will exceed 30 years is virtually zero. Few will last twenty-five years.
The result? A colossal misinvestment, disinvestment, and malinvestment that can be clearly seen in retrospect.
The post concludes that no amount of platitudes will change the fact that “the laws of physics and economics do not yield to green ideology”. Amen to that.
Conclusion
Claims that South Fork Wind is a reliable source of electricity are based on fact but the information is used out of context to manipulate readers into believing that offshore wind is a viable generating resource for New York’s future. Offshore wind is the most expensive source of electricity. Continued funding for a resource that cannot provide energy when needed most is the epitome of misinvestment, disinvestment, and malinvestment.
Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.
