Another U.S. offshore wind project is seemingly sunk before ever spinning a blade, although the developer of Vineyard Wind 2 says it’s not giving up entirely yet.
Vineyard Offshore, the developer behind Vineyard Wind 1 and 2, said it is pulling the 1,200 megawatt (MW) Vineyard Wind 2 out of contract negotiations after Connecticut decided not to purchase the remaining 400 MW still up in the air. Massachusetts had previously elected to acquire 800 MW from Vineyard Wind 2, but the project’s future was dependent on Connecticut picking up the rest.
“We were proud to submit our Vineyard Wind 2 proposal in response to the New England three-state solicitation, and we are grateful to Massachusetts for its provisional award of 800 MW. With Connecticut’s decision today not to purchase the remaining 400 MW we are unable to contract the project’s full 1200 MW at this time,” Vineyard Offshore spokesperson Kathryn Niforos told WBUR. “We look forward to advancing this project and participating in future solicitations to meet the region’s growing energy needs while spurring economic investment and creating thousands of American energy jobs.”
Instead of the selecting the remaining 400 MW from Vineyard Wind 2, Connecticut chose to procure more solar and storage projects.
Vineyard Offshore originally proposed the Vineyard Wind 2 project in March 2024 in response to the New England states’ solicitation for up to 6,800 MW of offshore wind capacity. It was chosen when Massachusetts and Rhode Island announced the selection of 2,878 MW of offshore wind in what the states called the first coordinated procurement of its kind and the largest offshore wind selection in New England history.
As a part of the procurement, Massachusetts selected 2,678 MW in total from three projects: 1,087 MW of the 1,287 MW SouthCoast Wind multistate project, 791 MW of the 791 MW New England Wind 1 project, and up to 800 MW of the 1,200 MW Vineyard Wind 2 project. This selection represents nearly 20% of the overall electric demand in Massachusetts, state officials added. Rhode Island, on the other hand, selected 200 MW from one project: the remaining capacity of SouthCoast Wind. That represents one-sixth of Rhode Island Energy’s recent solicitation for 1,200 MW of new offshore wind to help power the state’s clean energy needs.
Vineyard Wind 1
Although it made it past steel in the water, Vineyard Wind 1 has had its own share of problems. Last summer, Vineyard Wind 1, also developed by Vineyard Offshore, experienced an “incident” in which pieces of turbine blades fell into the water and washed ashore. GE Vernova, which manufactured the blade, said a preliminary investigation suggested a “manufacturing deviation” was to blame. Debris continued to wash ashore for weeks after the incident, putting Vineyard Wind 1 and GE Vernova in an uncomfortable spotlight.
Following a probe into the incident, GE Vernova’s offshore wind turbine manufacturing plant in Quebec, Canada announced it had fired or suspended several workers last fall. The blade that caused the Vineyard Wind incident was fabricated at the LM Wind Power factory in Gaspé, Canada, one of two places where the Haliade-X blades are made. GE Vernova said in an August, 2024 earnings call that the company would reinspect all of the blades manufactured at that plant. The other factory in Cherbourg, France has also made recent headlines for the wrong reasons after an “operational incident” involving a mold used to make a Haliade-X component in April 2024.
Vineyard Wind said none of its employees or contractors were in the area at the time of the incident and no injuries were reported. Several days later, the joint venture began mobilizing debris recovery teams on Nantucket to survey the southern-facing beaches of the island and recover debris.
Shortly after the incident, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said that operations at Vineyard Wind had been suspended until it could be determined whether the “blade failure” impacted other turbine blades on the development. As a result, power production in the lease area was suspended and the installation of a new wind turbine generator construction was also on hold. In August 2024, Vineyard Wind said it obtained federal approval to continue work on the wind farm.
In September last year, GE Vernova said it planned to cut up to 900 offshore wind jobs globally in a move to reduce its offshore wind footprint. The move came not only amid uncertainty and supply chain constraints in the offshore market but also another incident involving a GE Vernova Haliade-X turbine blade – this time at the Dogger Bank Wind Farm off the northeast coast of England. However, in this case, GE Vernova said its analysis showed that the blade event was not caused by an installation or manufacturing issue but instead occurred during the commissioning process, when the turbine was left in a fixed and static position, rendering it vulnerable during a subsequent storm with high winds.
Vineyard Wind 1 is located about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts. Once fully operational, Vineyard Wind 1 will deliver 806 MW.
What’s going on with US offshore wind?
The U.S. offshore wind industry, while making leaps and bounds in some areas, has been muddled in misfortune in recent years. A recent report released by the American Clean Power Association (ACP) projects about 14 GW of wind capacity offshore U.S. coastlines by 2030, significantly shy of the goal of 30 GW set by the Biden administration in 2021.
The 2024 Offshore Wind Market Report projects $65 billion will be invested in offshore wind projects by 2030. There are currently 12 GW of projects with active offtake agreements, including 4 GW under active construction at Vineyard Wind, Revolution Wind, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind. China is the global leader in offshore wind capacity, with nearly 38 GW. There is merely 174 MW of offshore wind capacity currently installed in the United States as of June 30.
According to the report, there is 56 GW under development across 37 leases in the United States. Market analysts forecast 30 GW deployed by 2033 and 40 GW online by 2035, quickly making up ground behind the assumedly missed 2030 goal. These outlooks build on the 7.6 GW of offshore wind projects seeking to be operational by the end of 2027, per ACP.
Increasing material costs, high interest rates, and supply chain snags have led multiple offshore wind companies in the last few years to cancel or renegotiate power contracts for planned offshore wind farms. The U.S. Energy Information Administration is tracking offshore capacity, noting totals are in flux after Orsted canceled Ocean Wind 1 and 2 in New Jersey late in 2023.
And then there’s Donald Trump’s re-election, which has already thrown a wrench into one major offshore project and stands to threaten the rest. In campaign appearances, Trump railed against offshore wind and promised to sign an executive order to block such projects.
“We are going to make sure that [offshore wind] ends on Day 1,” Trump said in a May 2024 speech. “I’m going to write it out in an executive order. It’s going to end on Day 1.”
Trump has railed against offshore wind turbines spoiling the view from a golf course he owns in Scotland. However, numerous environmental groups say the real reason he opposes offshore wind is his support for the fossil fuel industry. Trump is unlikely to end current projects but might have more leverage over ones still in the planning stage, those in the debate say.
This article contains reporting from the Associated Press.
