Photo: Courtesy of Eric Haynes/Avangrid
BOSTON (State House News Service) — A manufacturing misstep is believed to have led to the failure of a wind turbine blade at the Vineyard Wind 1 project, and the environmental consultancy firm hired to conduct an initial analysis of the environmental impacts of the incident said the materials now washing ashore miles away are nontoxic but still present an injury risk to people.
A still undisclosed "incident" on July 13 damaged a 107-meter wind turbine blade being tested at the site of the first offshore wind installation to provide clean power to Massachusetts and the region, leading to extensive blade debris and subsequent cleanup efforts that are continuing more than 10 days later. The blade failure has set the project back and angered residents and local officials on Nantucket, where south-facing beaches had to be closed because they were littered with debris that Vineyard Wind said the public should not handle.
Last Thursday, a huge, damaged and dangling piece of the wind blade detached from the turbine and dropped into the Atlantic Ocean, adding an even greater amount of debris to the swirling currents.
The CEO of GE Vernova, the company selected by Vineyard Wind to manufacture the blades and turbines, said Wednesday morning that his company has "no indications of an engineering design flaw" that could have caused the blade failure, but instead thinks it was a result of an issue in the manufacturing process, specifically "insufficient bonding."
"We have identified a material deviation or a manufacturing deviation in one of our factories that, through the inspection or quality assurance process, we should have identified. Because of that, we're going to use our existing data and re-inspect all of the blades that we have made for offshore wind," GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik said during the company's second-quarter earnings call. "And for context, at this factory in Gaspe, Canada where their material deviation existed, we've made about 150 blades. So that gives you an indication and context of the work."
CommonWealth Beacon first reported Strazik's comments Wednesday morning.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, GE Vernova said it does not know when the the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement will lift its July 15 order suspending power production and construction of Vineyard Wind 1. The company also noted that it could find itself on the hook for costs related to the incident.
"Under our contractual arrangement with the developer of Vineyard Wind, we may receive claims for damages, including liquidated damages for delayed completion, and other incremental or remedial costs. These amounts could be significant and adversely affect our cash collection timelines and contract profitability," the company wrote. "We are currently unable to reasonably estimate what impact the event, any potential claims, or the related BSEE order would have on our financial position, results of operations and cash flows."
Arcadis US, which was hired by GE Vernova to report on the July 13 incident at the in-construction Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm, said the "current primary potential risk is injury to people who may physically contact the blade debris, (such as shards of fiberglass) on public beach and shoreline areas."
"The current risk concern is the potential for physical contact of debris by child and adult recreational users of public beach and shoreline areas, currently mitigated by the ongoing/future program to recovery debris," the firm wrote in its report, which said there is a "moderate" risk of human exposure to shoreline debris.
Nantucket town officials said Wednesday morning that Vineyard Wind and GE "continue collecting blade debris from the water via offshore vessels" and are still going with debris collection efforts across South Side beaches. The town said the debris being recovered "includes a mix of foam and fiberglass pieces of varying sizes."
The Nantucket Select Board discussed legal strategy related to the Vineyard Wind incident during an executive session Tuesday. The local officials are scheduled to hold a public meeting Wednesday evening, and the agenda calls for a "follow-up on Vineyard Wind I blade failure and clean up status" report from Town Manager Libby Gibson. Representatives of GE Vernova and Vineyard Wind are expected to attend.
The blade that broke off of the turbine is 107 meters long and weighed more than 114,640 pounds, Arcadis said -- about the weight of two adult male humpback whales. There are 33 different materials involved in the production of the blade, ranging from basic and common household adhesives to more complex industrial materials.
The final blade is composed of fiberglass, semi-rigid foam and polyester resins, materials that Arcadis noted are commonly found in textiles, boat construction and the aviation industry. Once assembly is complete, the blade materials are "considered inert, stable, non-toxic, and non-hazardous," Arcadis said, but further evaluations will look into "the potential for degradation of the residual blade materials that remain in the environment."
Arcadis said none of the materials used in the blade construction contain cancer-causing PFAS chemicals, but "small Aerodynamic add-ons attached to the root end of the exterior of the blade" as a common industry practice to improve efficiency performance of the blade include Teflon, a PFAS chemical. PFAS content of the add-ons totals 28.2 grams, accounting for 0.00005 percent of the total blade weight.
There were 240 aerodynamic add-ons on the blade that broke, and Arcadis said that at least 67 of them are still attached to the stub of the blade.
"Of the remaining 173 units, it is not yet possible to confirm how many remain adhered to the outer blade due to not only the folded section of the remaining blade piece. It is possible that some may have fallen from the blade, have landed either on the working platform of the tower or equally into the sea, and/or have already been collected in the debris from the shoreline or by the salvage vessels," the firm's report said.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center confirmed Wednesday that it tested the model of blade that is used on the Vineyard Wind 1 project, though not the individual blade that failed, at its Wind Technology Testing Center in Charlestown.
That facility performs testing at the direction and specifications of the manufacturer and then relays testing data to the manufacturer. A MassCEC spokesman said blade testing is one part of the overall turbine testing certification process, and the Charlestown facility does not participate in that process beyond providing test data. MassCEC's role is limited to execution of the tests and certification is conducted by a different entity, the spokesman said.
The Charlestown testing site opened in 2011 as the first facility in North America capable of testing the blades that power offshore wind turbines, replicating the stress of a 25-year lifespan at sea in the course of just a few months.
But when it got a 107-meter blade built for the GE Haliade-X turbines, the kind used on the Vineyard Wind 1 project, "they had to like cut them off a little bit because they were so big, they couldn't fit in the space," Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper said last year as she announced that the Healey administration would pursue an expansion of the facility.
The MassCEC Board recently approved the allocation of $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act money to fund the initial design work to get the project to shovel-ready status and the center is working with the Mass. Port Authority as its agent for the procurement and management of design and construction services, the center said. MassCEC said Massport has issued an RFQ on the center's behalf for design services.
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