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Vineyard Wind has yet to break its silence following the Trump administration’s suspension of its project along with four others Monday, but according to the state, the project may continue generating power at its current capacity.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in its Dec. 22 suspension order wrote, “given that this project is partially generating power, you may continue any activities from those wind turbines that are necessary for the current level of power generation.”
A spokesperson with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office said the BOEM order allows Vineyard Wind to “continue operating at current capacity.”
The order states that in November, the Defense Department completed an assessment for the Interior Department on national security concerns regarding offshore wind development.
The information, which BOEM states is new and classified, regards “the rapid evolution of relevant adversary technologies and the resulting direct impacts to national security from offshore wind projects.”
The order also raises the possibility of project cancellation.
“Based on BOEM’s initial review of this classified information, the particularized harm posed by this project can only be feasibly averted by suspension of on-lease activities,” reads the order, signed by BOEM Acting Director Matthew Giacona. “Given the construction status of this project, BOEM will consider all feasible mitigation measures before making a decision as to whether the project must be cancelled.”
BOEM declined to clarify the order’s language on power generation, with a spokesperson referring The Light back to the order.
Gov. Maura Healey’s office this week said the project is currently capable of generating up to 572 megawatts of the nameplate 800-megawatt capacity. In October, the project reached 50% power production. As of this week, it has only one turbine tower left to install, along with several blade sets.
Data from the grid operator, ISO New England, showed a significant drop off in wind generation Tuesday morning relative to the previous few days. Two sources told The Light that their contacts offshore did not see turbines spinning on Tuesday.
One source provided a video to The Light, taken Tuesday afternoon, on the condition it not be shared. The bright overcast skies obfuscated some of the white blades, but the visible turbines were at a standstill.
Tony Alvernaz, a New Bedford fisherman who works with Vineyard Wind, has a fishing vessel at the lease doing security work. He’s not offshore, but he contacted his crew, who said of the few turbines they could see amid the fog, none were spinning.
Alvernaz isn’t sure what the pause means for his work on the project, but he said his boat has not been instructed to come in early (it’s due in on Christmas). He supports the Trump administration, and while highly critical of the Biden administration’s approach to offshore wind, he said he was “shocked” by Monday’s action.
“I wish this country could meet in the middle somewhere,” he said. “It’s one extreme… the previous administration didn’t give a rat’s ass about the commercial fishermen… and now you have the total opposite.”
Vineyard Wind representatives have largely fallen silent since the blade break incident in the summer of 2024. All other developers have issued statements on their project suspensions, with the exception of Vineyard Wind and its parent company, Avangrid Renewables.
As of Tuesday evening, a Vineyard Wind spokesperson did not respond to questions about power generation.
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
