September 26, 2024 — The Nantucket anti-offshore wind organization ACK for Whales is pushing a lawsuit targeting the Vineyard Wind project to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Monday, the group officially requested the Supreme Court review its appeal of a decision reached by the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals.
It is yet to be seen whether the Supreme Court will actually review the case.
September 26, 2024 — The contractor hired by Vineyard Wind to install 62 turbines south of the Island is reporting significant financial losses amid damages to turbine blades in multiple projects, and most recently, they are announcing intentions to downsize while pushing forward with billions of dollars in unfinished work.
GE Vernova, who have contracts to manufacture and install turbines around the world, said last week that they plan to cut as many as 900 jobs.
“The proposal reflects industry wide challenges for wind and aims to transform our Offshore Wind business into a smaller, leaner and more profitable business within GE Vernova,” a spokesperson told The Times in an email statement.
The announcement was made in a report to the European Works Council, which represents workers. Vernova did not specify where the job losses would be felt, but a spokesperson did say that they plan to finish out existing projects, including Vineyard Wind.
September 26, 2024 — The manufacturer of Vineyard Wind’s offshore wind turbines could cut 900 jobs worldwide after facing heavy financial losses due in part to the aftermath of several blade breaks at key projects.
GE Vernova, the company behind the 853-foot tall turbines being built to the Island’s south, last week proposed the cutbacks to deal with inflation, supply chain challenges and the delays in power production following three separate blade breaks.
“The proposal reflects industry wide challenges for wind and aims to transform our offshore wind business into a smaller, leaner and more profitable business within GE Vernova,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
The announcement comes about two months after one of the 107-meter blades at the Vineyard Wind project broke, scattering fiberglass and styrofoam into the ocean. The broken blade has halted power production at the wind farm and delayed construction for weeks in the prime summer construction period.
September 26, 2024 — Michael Moore has spent decades studying North Atlantic right whales. He’s seen somewhere around 150 of them. It’s a feat, given that now there are just about 360 left in the world.
But the veterinarian, author, and scientist emeritus from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution had never seen an offshore wind farm up close — until last week.
“Look at them. All out in neat little rows,” he said, standing at the rear of a 53-foot charter boat that offered a closeup view of construction on Vineyard Wind, 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.
About half of the planned 62 turbines are fully constructed, reaching more than 250 meters into the sky. When the boat slowed down to pass beneath one of the turbines, Moore was awestruck by the length of a blade.
“Right whales are 40 to 50 feet,” he said. “So you can stretch seven right whales along the length of one of these blades.”
September 24, 2024 — Economic and supply-chain warning signs are flashing again in the international wind energy sector.
Turbine manufacturer GE Vernova said Sept 20 it will downsize its offshore efforts, after a reported $300 million third-quarter loss in its wind business overshadowed the marketing push of its top-line Haliade-X machine.
A Haliade-X turbine lost a blade to fracture on the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts in July, following two other blade failures on projects in Europe.
September 11, 2024 — Nearly a year after Vineyard Wind installed its first turbine off Nantucket, the lights atop the 800-foot towers – which the company promised would remain dark unless an aircraft was passing by – continue to blink incessantly on the horizon.
While the project remains suspended by the federal government following the July 13 blade failure that remains under investigation, Vineyard Wind has been allowed to resume some construction activities, and the lights atop the 24 turbines that have been installed to date have been an eyesore for many who enjoy Nantucket’s dark skies at night.
As part of Vineyard Wind’s mitigation agreement with the town of Nantucket – a document better known as the Good Neighbor Agreement that was signed back in 2020 – the company is required to install a so-called Aircraft Detection Lighting System or ADLS. This system will utilize radar to ensure the lights at the top of each turbine activate only when there is an aircraft close to the wind farm area.
Vineyard Wind initially pledged to have the system operational by Memorial Day weekend. After that deadline came and went, the company pledged in June that the ADLS would be up and running “within the next several weeks.” Now, nearly three months after that statement, there is still no definitive timeline for when the system will be active.
September 5, 2024 — The federal government is now saying that pile driving for the Vineyard Wind project is likely to have an adverse impact on marine life, although it won’t be a detriment to the population of the endangered North Atlantic right whales.
An announcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in late ugust reads that the agency concluded the proposed pile driving for the installation of 15 remaining monopiles will “adversely affect, but is not likely to jeopardize, the continued existence” of whales, sea turtles, or fish listed in the Endangered Species Act.
“It will have no effect on any designated critical habitat,” the announcement reads. “NOAA Fisheries does not anticipate serious injuries to or mortalities of any Endangered Species Act listed whale including the North Atlantic right whale.”
The full biological opinion by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is not publicly available yet. NOAA spokesperson Andrea Gomez told the Times on Tuesday the new opinion will be available on the agency’s library website “any day now.”
September 4, 2024 — Jim Boyd’s heart sank the first time he saw the now-infamous image of a fractured wind turbine blade dangling above the Atlantic Ocean.
Not because of the fiberglass and styrofoam debris collected from the waters and shoreline along Nantucket in the month that followed. Not because of the potential safety implications the blade failure might mean for the Vineyard Wind project, or others.
Boyd’s first thought?
“This is going to be an incredible PR nightmare for Vineyard Wind and the nascent offshore wind industry in southern New England,” said Boyd, a commercial shellfisherman who retired as the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council’s deputy director in 2022.
He was right.
In the wake of the July 13 incident, deemed a manufacturing error in preliminary review, the chorus of concerns over the offshore wind industry grew to a roar. Which has made the job of selling skeptics much harder: not just on Vineyard Wind, but the slew of projects coming up behind it, including the 700-megawatt Revolution Wind farm being built off Rhode Island’s coastline. The developer announced Tuesday the first of 65 turbines in the project had been installed.
August 28, 2024 — The federal government expects no endangered whales, including North Atlantic right whales, to be killed or seriously injured by the installation of Vineyard Wind’s remaining turbines, but the same is not true for sea turtles.
The National Marine Fisheries Service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, has issued a new biological opinion on ways the continued turbine installation could affect threatened and endangered species.
The opinion won’t be published for several days, but in a summary provided to CAI, Greater Atlantic regional spokeswoman Andrea Gomez said the agency anticipates that an average of one sea turtle per year will be struck and killed by a boat associated with Vineyard Wind.
August 27, 2024 — New England fishing captains held a floating protest against offshore wind Sunday in the waters surrounding Vineyard Wind.
They say the fiberglass debris strewn in the water in July from a broken wind turbine blade has only made them more concerned about living with turbines.
“We’re really concerned about wind farms in the ocean-based environment, and we’re not happy with what’s going on with the current one,” Nantucket charter fishing captain Carl Bois said.
About two dozen boats participated in the protest, he said.
Three offshore wind blades of the type used at Vineyard Wind have suffered failures since May, the most recent on Thursday in the United Kingdom.
Problems with blades on the Haliade-X turbines have energized local offshore wind opponents. As fishing boats protested at Vineyard Wind Sunday, a small group of Nantucket residents protested on the island at Cisco Beach, the Nantucket Current reported.
Nantucket fisherman and charter captain Pete Kaizer, who participated in the protest by boat, told CAI he worries offshore development will contribute to species decline.
“People say, ‘Oh, it’ll come back. It’ll all come back.’ Well, look at all the fisheries that haven’t come back,” he said, citing cod, herring, and mackerel. “They’re at rock bottom.”