Saving Seafood

Vineyard Wind construction resumes one month after turbine blade failure. What we know.

August 15, 2024 — Even as investigations continue into what caused the blade on Vineyard Wind turbine AW-38 to collapse last month, sending splintered fiberglass, rigid foam and balsa wood into the ocean, limited construction is resuming on the 806-megawatt offshore project.

On Tuesday, Foss Maritime‘s Prevailing Wind barge — one of only two vessels in the world capable of transporting Vineyard Wind’s massive turbine components in an upright position — left the New Bedford Marine Commerce terminal loaded with tower sections and a nacelle and headed for the project area south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Also on board was a rack of three blades, though according to the wind developer this was “solely for the purpose of ensuring safe and balanced composition for the transport,” not for installation. The company said the blades will be returned to the commerce terminal later this week.

Read the full article at The Herald News

Feds allow Vineyard Wind to resume partial installation

August 14, 2024 –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.”

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

High-Tech “Crawlers” Deployed to Survey Vineyard Wind’s Turbine Blades

August 13, 2024 — A month after an embarrassing incident in which one of the turbine blades broke at the Vineyard Wind offshore wind farm, the developer presented its recovery plan. It is working with the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard, and has retained Resolve Marine to assist Vineyard Wind and GE Vernova in the recovery effort. At the same time, residents continue to report finding fragments washed up on the shoreline of Massachusetts.

The project continues to repeat the preliminary assessment that is now completed by GE Vernova which cites a “manufacturing deviation” in the bonding of the composite material used to make the blades. The companies had said it was an identifiable issue with the adhesion that should have been discovered during quality control.

The blade initially broke on July 13 while one of the turbines not in service was undergoing testing. The automated safety controls stopped the individual turbine. Parts of the blade remained attached, while some sections were caught on the base and the remainder fell into the water. Elements of the composite material and the lightweight foam began washing up before the blade broke further in the following days. Work at the wind farm both on the turbines in service and construction was suspended and remains under a stop work order from BSEE.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

MASSACHUSETTS: More Vineyard Wind turbine pieces fall in ‘controlled detachment,’ debris could hit Nantucket beaches

August 13, 2024 — More pieces of the faulty Vineyard Wind turbine blade fell in a controlled detachment early Sunday morning, and Nantucket beaches remain at risk of seeing more debris wash up in the coming days, town officials reported.

“The controlled detachment follows a series of exercises conducted late last week to pitch the blade, which, in combination with storm winds, led to the safe separation of the sections below the root of the blade,” Nantucket officials stated Sunday night.

Following the July 13 initial malfunction and collapse of the wind turbine, Vineyard Wind and GE Vernova said they’ve developed a “comprehensive plan to recover the remaining AW-38 blade in incremental steps” in a presentation released Friday.

As of Sunday night, teams from the companies are assessing whether the remaining sections “pose a risk of detachment,” Nantucket officials said. The root of the blade, which has a plan in place for its removal, is still attached and being monitored.

Read the full article at The Boston Herald

MASSACHUSETTS: Can crawler robots, fiberoptic sensors prevent the next break?

August 13, 2024 — A month after a football field-sized blade on Vineyard Wind turbine AW-38 folded over and began breaking apart into the ocean, the company and blade manufacturer GE Vernova are continuing work to remove its remnants and to respond to floating and washed-up debris around the region — including the Islands and Cape Cod.

Over the weekend, an outline of the blade incident report and action plan was also released.

The latest detachment of blade portions still hanging from the turbine occurred on Sunday morning, and Nantucket officials issued an advisory Sunday night about the potential for more debris coming ashore there, depending on wind direction.

Sunday’s “controlled detachment” followed a series of adjustments to the blade’s position completed at the end of last week, which, in combination with winds from the remnants of Hurricane Debby, “led to the safe separation of the sections below the root of the blade,” according to Nantucket officials.

Read the full article at The Herald News

MASSACHUSETTS: Vineyard Wind lays out cleanup plan for damaged turbine, but doesn’t say when wind farm will resume spinning

August 12, 2024 — Officials with the Vineyard Wind energy project and turbine manufacturer GE Vernova unveiled a new plan on Friday to recover from the failure of a wind turbine blade in July that scattered debris into the ocean and onto nearby beaches.

What they didn’t say, though, was when construction would resume on the massive wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard, or when the project would start generating electricity again.

The July 13 incident, which GE Vernova blamed on poor bonding and quality control at a factory in Quebec, prompted the shutdownand halt to construction of the wind farm, which would eventually generate enough power for 400,000 homes. So far, 24 of the 62 skyscraper-sized turbine towers have been installed and 11 were delivering power into the region’s grid until the blade failure promptly halted the project.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

A Lot Was Riding on This Wind Farm. Then Giant Shards Washed Up in Nantucket.

August 12, 2024 — This summer was supposed to be a breakout season for the faltering offshore wind business in the U.S. Instead it may be defined by an ill-timed break.

A large project off the coast of Massachusetts, called Vineyard Wind, remains at a standstill following an accident that dropped a massive turbine blade into the ocean last month and washed chunks of debris onto Nantucket beaches.

The blade broke at the height of summer and at a pivotal moment for the U.S. offshore wind industry, which has struggled with rising costs, political opposition and a wave of canceled and renegotiated contracts. Efforts to launch the sector in the U.S. are considered key to President Biden’s climate aspirations but would be especially vulnerable if former President Donald Trump returns to office.

Of the many clean-energy incentives and policies approved by Congress or the Biden administration in recent years, offshore wind projects and electric vehicles have been singled out repeatedly by Trump with particular ire.

“We are going to make sure that ends on day one,” Trump said at a campaign event in May, talking about an offshore wind project in New Jersey. “I will write it out in an executive order.”

The project offshore Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard is among the largest planned wind farms in U.S. waters, with the capacity to deliver electricity to around 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts. It was the first U.S. commercial offshore wind installation to start delivering grid power earlier this year and has more than a third of its turbines in place.

Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal

MASSACHUSETTS: Vineyard Wind lays out plan to remove remaining damaged blade

August 12, 2024 — Vineyard Wind issued an action plan on Friday with details about the steps it will take to remove the remaining damaged blade, as post-tropical storm Debby makes its way to Massachusetts.

This involves removing fallen debris from the tower platform, rotating the turbine to shake loose any further debris, potentially cutting off a dangling portion of the blade, removing debris from the ocean floor, and ultimately detaching the blade “root” from the nacelle (the turbine’s generator).

A Vineyard Wind spokesperson said there was no specific order in the multi-step plan for removal, but did not state whether any of the steps were undertaken on Thursday or Friday.

Vineyard Wind’s plan also calls for resuming turbine installation (without the blades) before the inspection of all blades is complete. The company, however, cannot resume such activity until the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) lifts or amends its suspension order to allow for certain component installation to resume.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: Nantucket residents seek to freeze offshore wind projects following Vineyard Wind failure

August 12, 2024 — A group of Nantucket residents is calling for a moratorium on all offshore wind development while the feds say there’s no timeline for when construction will proceed on Vineyard Wind following last month’s turbine blade failure.

The call from ACK4Whales, a nonpartisan community group, comes as debris continues to wash ashore on Nantucket, and the “small, popcorn-sized pieces of foam” and fiberglass shards spread to Martha’s Vineyard, Falmouth and elsewhere.

ACK4Whales is also preparing to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal on its lawsuit that looks to block the Vineyard Wind project.

A federal judge in April rejected the group’s arguments that the federal agencies that permitted the 62-turbine, 806-megawatt wind farm violated the Endangered Species Act, with construction threatening to “decimate” the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Read the full article at Boston Herald

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Shellfishing Can Continue After Blade Break, State Says

August 9, 2024 — A week after debris from the broken Vineyard Wind turbine washed up on Edgartown beaches, state officials said they are investigating potential harm to the region’s seafood but don’t see a need to immediately stop eating shellfish.

Representatives with the state Department of Environmental Protection and Division of Marine Fisheries, as well as several federal agencies that are involved in offshore wind energy, met with the Nantucket select board Wednesday to talk about the fallout of the turbine blade that collapsed into the ocean on July 13.

Though thousands of pieces of fiberglass and styrofoam went into the water, both state agencies told Nantucketers that they saw no need to halt shellfishing in the region, but remained committed to monitoring the situation.

Wendy Heiger-Bernays, the chief of research at the state Department of Environmental Protection, and Chrissy Petitpas, an aquaculture biologist at the state Division of Marine Fisheries, came before the board to give their thoughts on the potential harm to marine life.

After reviewing initial reports and data from the turbine manufacturer, Ms. Heiger-Bernays said the debris posed a threat to beachgoers and boaters, but it is unlikely to be a significant risk to aquatic organisms chemically-speaking.

That said, the department offered its expertise to help craft water quality studies and review any findings.

Read the full article at the Vineyard Gazette