Worries about an over rapid scale-up of wind turbines in offshore applications, and consequent reliability issues, have not been helped by the high profile blade failure on 13 July at Vineyard Wind 1. The wind farm, a joint venture of Avangrid (Iberdrola Group) and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, located off the coast of Massachusetts, is currently in the construction phase, with, as of end June, ten of its planned 62 GE Vernova Haliade-X wind turbines generating power.
Causing added embarrassment for the USA’s fledgling offshore wind industry is the fact that Vineyard Wind 1, with a planned installed capacity of 806 MWe, is the USA’s first large scale offshore wind farm (significantly larger than South Fork, at 132 MW, with 12 Siemens wind turbines, the country’s first utility scale offshore wind farm, completed in March 2024).
Following the blade failure incident, the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued a suspension order requiring power production to cease at all the Vineyard Wind turbines until it can be determined whether the failure mechanism affects any other Vineyard Wind turbines. The order also suspends construction activities.
The root cause of the failure in the 107 m long blade has yet to be determined and BSEE says it will “conduct an independent assessment to ensure the safety of future offshore renewable energy operations.” GE Vernova will also be carrying out a root cause analysis.
There have been, as might be expected, other instances of offshore wind turbine blade failure, for example in May at Dogger Bank in the UK, which is also using Haliade-X machines. Initial findings indicate the failure mechanism there was isolated to the single blade affected.
Interestingly, GE Vernova recently decided to pull back from its proposed 18 MW Haliade offering and focus on 15.5 MW machines (upgradeable to 16.5 MW).
As of 20 July, Vineyard Wind said “significant progress” had been made in recovering blade debris, both in the water and deposited on the southern facing beaches of Nantucket. The debris has been described as consisting of truckloads of “fibreglass shards, and green and white foam.”
GE Vernova has engaged Arcadis to conduct an environmental impact assessment of the blade failure for presentation to Nantucket local government representatives.
