The U.S. Interior Department has shut down the planned 804-MW Vineyard 1 wind project operating and under construction in federal waters some 15 miles off Nantucket Island. The order came after a blade on one of the 13-MW wind turbines shattered on July 17 spreading debris, some of which washed up on the island beaches.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSSE), one of three successor agencies established after the 2010 failure of Interior’s Minerals Management Service in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, issued the shut-down order to project owner Avangrid Renewables.
In discussing the order, BSSE said it “issued a Suspension Order to Vineyard Wind to cease power production from all its wind turbine generators until it can be determined whether the blade failure affects any other VW turbines. The Suspension Order suspends power production on the lease area and suspends installation of new wind turbine generator construction: Those operations will remain shut down until the suspension is lifted. BSEE has also issued a Preservation Order to safeguard any evidence that may be relevant to determining the cause of the incident.”
Vineyard 1 is the largest offshore operating wind farm in the U.S. with 10 GE Halide X turbines generating 136 MW. Plans call for a total of 62 wind turbines. Each GE Verona blade is 107 meters (350 feet) long and the rotor of the wind machine is 220 meters (755 feet). Power from the first wind turbine began flowing to the ISO NE grid in January and the project schedule calls for completion by the end of this year. Whether the Interior’s pause will impact that schedule is an open question.
Klaus Moller, Vineyard Wind CEO, said, “We’re making progress in the debris recovery efforts and mobilizing even more resources on the island to hasten the cleanup as quickly as possible. We continue to ask that members of the public avoid handling any of the debris but report any debris sightings to Vineyard Wind or town officials for recovery.”
OffshoreWIND.biz cited company officials as claiming that as of early Wednesday, soon after debris washed up on the beaches, cleanup crews “removed approximately 17 cubic yards of fiberglass and foam debris, enough to fill more than six truckloads and several larger pieces that washed ashore.”
The Boston Globe described the event as “an unsettling setback,” adding that “the wind farm, as well as beaches on Nantucket, had to be shut down after a section of a 350-foot-long blade was damaged over the weekend, with fiberglass chunks washing ashore. Then on Thursday morning, a significant part of what remained of the damaged turbine blade detached and fell into the ocean.
“Now there are questions that are both immediate — is it safe for swimmers and ocean-dependent businesses? — and long term: Can it happen again? And what does it mean, big picture, in a state and a country that have staked a large part of their clean energy future on the success of offshore wind?”
Climate website Heatmap reported, “Apparently this isn’t the first time a turbine manufactured by GE Verona has broken apart. There have been reports of similar incidents in the U.K., Germany, and Sweden in recent years.”
–Kennedy Maize
