A Massachusetts offshore wind developer must remove an undisclosed number of turbine blades from its project off Martha’s Vineyard, the turbine supplier said Wednesday.
GE Vernova’s announcement deals another setback to Vineyard Wind, which saw a one of its blades detach and plunge into the ocean over the summer. The accident temporarily halted construction of the 800 megawatt project and sparked an outcry from offshore wind opponents, who raised concerns about the incident’s environmental impact.
GE Vernova has confirmed that a manufacturing deviation was responsible for the accident, CEO Scott Strazik told financial analysts during a third-quarter earnings call. But it was not clear how many blades will need to be replaced at the project.
In a statement, the company said “some blades” would have to be replaced or strengthened. Straznik went a step further in the call: “We can say today that a very small proportion, low single digit proportion of our manufactured blades, in totality, also had a manufacturing deviation similar to the blade that we experienced the failure in Vineyard Wind. In those cases, we are taking action on those blades, and we’re doing that right now, and really now getting to a point of shifting back to execution out at sea.”