A massive wind turbine blade shattered offshore Massachusetts causing extensive debris, which shut down beaches on Nantucket Island and caused serious concern to fishermen, who worried that the debris could damage their boats. The failure of the massive blade and the resulting debris caused the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to suspend operations at Vineyard Wind until it could be determined whether the “blade failure” impacts other turbine blades on the development of the offshore wind farm. Power production has been suspended and installation of new wind turbine construction is on hold. And as more green energy trash washes ashore the local town is considering litigation. The facility’s massive wind turbines began sending electricity to the grid this past winter.
While all South Shore beaches have reopened on the island after more than six truckloads (17 cubic yards) of debris were collected, the company said that any washing ashore will be pieces of one square foot or less. While part of the blade still remains attached to the turbine, the company warned that there is a possibility it could detach soon. According to Vineyard Wind, it is working with the U.S. Coast Guard to maintain a safety zone of 500 meters (1,640 feet) around the affected offshore turbine.
Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and is the first approved and currently largest offshore wind energy project in the country. Vineyard Wind’s GE Haliade-X turbines that will be attached to the monopiles drilled into the sea floor will reach 853 feet in the air at the tip of the blade, each nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower. There will eventually be a total of 62 turbines constructed in the Vineyard Wind 1 lease area, and as of mid-July, 19 had been completed, with 10 operational, totaling 136 megawatts of capacity. About a dozen more were under construction. The turbines are manufactured by GE Vernova and the company is responsible for them as they are installed. It will be conducting the analysis into the root cause of the incident. It is unclear if the broken turbine is the result of a blade failure during operation, or some sort of impact during its installation.
A GE Vernova turbine blade failed at the U.K.’s massive Dogger Bank offshore wind installation this spring, and another broke several blades in Germany last fall, which brought the number of broken GE blades at the Alfstedt-Ebersdorf wind farm in Lower Saxony to three. The first blade had broken off the previous year at one of the wind farm’s eight GE 5.3-158 turbines.
On June 28, America Electric Power (AEP) filed suit against GE Vernova in New York court over quality and warranty concerns, claiming widespread issues with the turbines it has deployed at three wind projects in Oklahoma. It is alleging that “within only two to three years of commercial operation, the GE wind turbine generators have exhibited numerous material defects on major components and experienced several complete failures, at least one turbine blade liberation event, and other deficiencies.” “Turbine blade liberation” is a euphemism for blades flying off. AEP said it has already incurred “millions of dollars in costs and damages in the future” because it will “inevitably need to repair and/or replace” additional wind turbine generators to meet the energy production requirements of its customers. It alleges that GE Vernova refused to acknowledge responsibility to repair and/or replace all defective wind turbine generators.
Wind turbine blades are made from fiberglass, or fiber reinforced plastic, and cannot be recycled. The Biden-Harris administration has not indicated what or who it expects to deal with the mountain of waste that will result when thousands of turbine blades reach the end of their useful lives in 20 to 25 years, or in many cases less. In fact, wind blades are piling up in Texas and Iowa without proper disposal. Massive wind graveyards, for example, have popped up on the outskirts of Sweetwater, Texas. The pile of wind blades covers more than thirty acres, in stacks rising as high as basketball backboards. Other used blades are being stored in ten acres a couple miles south of town, and in other locations in the county. The issue was exacerbated by the government providing the tax subsidy a second time to wind turbines that have repowered, replacing their blades. Since the subsidy is obtained by producing wind energy but is time-limited, the Biden-Harris Administration’s tax interpretation effectively restarts the clock on subsidies if windmills are repowered.
The turbines now being deployed onshore and offshore are failing far sooner than expected because they have gotten too large as bigger wind turbines are more efficient than smaller ones—that is, they derive more energy from the same amount of capacity. But the larger the turbine, the more its components are hit by the stresses that come with their size and weight. The GE Vernova Haliade-X wind turbine used at Vineyard Wind stands 260 meters high and sweeps an area of 38,000 square meters. Its blades are 107 meters (351 feet) long and weigh 70 tons. In addition, the rotor of the turbine spans 220 meters. For comparison, the wingspan of a Boeing 737 is 34 meters. The Haliade-X rotor is six and a half times wider than the wingspan of a 737. The company decided early in 2024 to defer deployment of much larger turbines and turn to smaller, “workhorse” turbines without size challenges.
GE Vernova is not the only wind turbine maker facing losses. Last year, Germany’s Siemens Energy, announced it would take a loss on its wind business due to quality problems with its wind turbines. Siemens Energy announced that quality problems at its wind turbine unit would take years to fix, wiping over a third off its market value and dealing a blow to one of the world’s biggest suppliers of wind turbines. Siemens Energy saw $6.3 billion wiped off its market capitalization due to quality problems affecting its Siemens Gamesa wind turbine business—the biggest manufacturer of offshore wind turbines. Its 2023 profit outlook was scrapped as deeper-than-expected problems affected up to 15 to 30 percent of the more than 132 gigawatts worth of wind turbines worldwide. It could cost more than 1 billion euros ($1.09 billion) to fix flaws in rotor blades and bearings that could cause damage ranging from small cracks to component failures that would need to be replaced.
Conclusion
The U.S. offshore wind energy has foreign companies collecting billions of dollars in U.S. tax credits that do harm to U.S. fisheries and the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale that have been found dying on U.S. beaches. Now, the situation is worsening with defective parts falling into the ocean, affecting beaches and fishing opportunities in U.S. waters. Further, the GE wind turbine blades are coming apart during a calm summer day, so the damage inflicted when a large hurricane slams the U.S. east coast will be massive and the damage to beaches and fisheries will be enormous. The Biden-Harris climate goals that include massive wind projects, on shore and off, are not good for America’s energy nor for the environment.
