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A fully loaded feeder barge with turbine components, which for weeks has been sitting in New Bedford, left port and headed out to the Vineyard Wind site Tuesday morning. There, a vessel will offload the nacelle and tower components, but the blades will stay on and return to port.
The federal government this week updated its suspension order, allowing the project-on-pause to resume partial installation of new turbines as the parties continue to analyze the blade failure, which happened one month ago.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE)’s latest suspension order continues to prohibit further blade installation or power production at this time.
In response to a request for comment, a BSEE spokesperson said the agency issued the latest suspension order on August 10. The order requires “risk analysis and mitigation approved by BSEE prior to being able to conduct any activities on the damaged turbine.”
“This new order acknowledges that Vineyard Wind 1 and GE Vernova have satisfied the safety and risk assessment conditions to continue activities other than blade installation and power production,” said a BSEE spokesperson in an email. Vineyard Wind is also still permitted to install inter-array cables and conduct surveys.
This federal action comes after Vineyard Wind and GE Vernova undertook “controlled cutting activities” on the damaged turbine this weekend and on Monday, “substantially reducing the amount of the damaged blade that presents a risk for additional debris falling into the ocean.”
During the cutting operations, multiple vessels waited nearby to secure debris for containment and removal. Vessel trackers showed several vessels grouped around the damaged turbine on Monday.
Per a press release, Vineyard Wind and GE Vernova are assessing next steps for additional cutting, removal of debris from the turbine platform, removal of the blade root, and removal of the debris that has settled on the seafloor, which includes a large blade component that sank weeks ago.
These are steps the companies announced on August 9 in an action plan, which hinted at an amended suspension order: Vineyard Wind’s plan called for resuming turbine installation without the blades before the inspection of all blades is complete.
“The updated Order issued by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement reflects the unity of effort, extensive planning, independent third-party validation, and relentless focus on safety that went into developing our action plan to secure the remainder of the damaged blade and get this critical project back on track,” said Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus S. Møller in a statement. “As we take these important steps to resume installation activities, starting with towers and nacelles during GE Vernova’s ongoing blade inspection process, the safety of personnel and the environment remains our highest priority.”
”Our primary focus continues to be removing the parts of the blade that pose any risk of contributing further debris into the ocean,” said GE Vernova Chief Sustainability Officer Roger Martella in a statement.
Preliminary analysis by GE Vernova determined the blade failure was caused by a “manufacturing deviation,” specifically insufficient bonding that “should have been identified” at the factory in Gaspé, Canada.
The companies must complete a comprehensive review of existing scans and collect new data from within the blades to ensure there are no additional issues.
This includes reviewing more than 8,000 ultrasound photos and dispatching remote-controlled drones inside all blades for further visual inspection.
It remains unclear what medium- or long-term impacts, if any, the work suspension may have on the project, which had been halted since July 13.
GE Vernova, in a quarterly financial report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late last month, stated that under its contract with the developer of Vineyard Wind, “we may receive claims for damages, including liquidated damages for delayed completion, and other incremental or remedial costs.”
“These amounts could be significant and adversely affect our cash collection timelines and contract profitability,” the report continued. “We are currently unable to reasonably estimate what impact the event, any potential claims, or the related BSEE order would have on our financial position, results of operations and cash flows.”
The Foss Prevailing Wind, a feeder barge, carried blades out to the site for stability purposes, as the barge is equipped with a specially designed hydraulic platform for a full turbine complement. The blades will return to the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal later this week.
The U.S. Coast Guard continues to maintain a 500-meter safety exclusion zone around the damaged turbine, and a federal preservation order remains in place, which requires Vineyard Wind to retain all debris it collects.
Since the incident on July 13, blade debris has continued to wash up on beaches in Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Westport, and Rhode Island and in response, Vineyard Wind has continued its debris gathering efforts on land and at sea.
Concurrently, BSEE is conducting a separate investigation into the incident. Last week at a Nantucket Select Board meeting, federal officials said they could not provide a timeline on when they expect to complete their inspection of the blades for integrity.
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
The ecological impacts of this project will be a disaster for the region. Greenwashing is an epidemic in this area.
Brownwashing
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the “BP oil spill”) was an environmental disaster which began on 20 April 2010, off the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect,[6][7][8][9] considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8 to 31 percent larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico. Caused in the aftermath of a blowout and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, the United States federal government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 MMbbl (210,000,000 US gal; 780,000 m3).[3] After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010.[10] Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well site was still leaking.[11][12] The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is regarded as one of the largest environmental disasters in world history.
According to a 2022 news story : “As blades get longer, Charlestown testing center seeks to expand” The Mass Clean Energy Center in 2019 certified the GE-LM blades for manufacture in Canada. The MassCEC testing center is only 300 feet long. They had to cut 50 feet off the 350 foot prototype blade to complete the test. -They may have added weight on the end of the blade but would not be able to determine if a 350 blade in service could sway into the monopole structure
Did the blade hit the structure?