A preliminary analysis of the failed Vineyard Wind Turbine suggests that while the basic design of the machine’s 351-foot blades was sound, a manufacturing defect caused one of the blades to break off while spinning over the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month.
The July 13 incident prompted federal authorities to shut down an entire wind farm and left foam and fiberglass strewn across a beach in Nantucket, Mass. GE Vernova, which makes the Haliade-X turbine, said Wednesday that tests at its plant in Gaspé, Canada, showed that the blades did not have enough bonding. Reuters reportedThe company said it was able to discover the problem through a quality assurance program and will inspect all 150 blades produced at the facility.
“While there is work to be done, we are confident in our ability to implement corrective action and move forward,” a company representative told Reuters. GE stressed that the investigation so far has found no reason to question the integrity of the design, noting that “there is no indication that the blades have an engineering design flaw.”
The blade failed during testing and commissioning after installation on July 13, sending debris flying into the Atlantic Ocean. About 300 feet of the remaining debris hangs on a few fiberglass strands next to the tower, which is about 450 feet above the water, but if the blade were pointed straight up, it would be about 853 feet tall. Most of it fell into the ocean five days later, with waiting vessels recovering what they could, despite what Vineyard Wind calls “challenging operating conditions.”
But by that point, the foam and fiberglass had long since reached the Nantucket coast 15 miles away, angering local residents and giving wind power opponents ammunition. Residents expressed concerns that: Perfluorinated compounds (PFAS) Pollution, plastic pollution, and the impact of accidents on the local environment and economy. Vineyard Wind claims the material is non-toxic and there have been no reports of marine life dying, injured, or otherwise harmed by accidents, but fiberglass can cause skin irritation.
While the manufacturing oversight that led to the failure was unfortunate, it is one of the most likely failure points in the life cycle of an offshore turbine, Grant Goodrich, executive director of the Great Lakes Energy Institute, told Grist. He said installation-related issues are extremely rare, and because the failed blade was brand new, the biggest concerns were manufacturing defects or damage incurred during shipping.
Failures of any kind, though rare, are not completely uncommon. Turbine blades at Dogger Bank Offshore wind farm in the UK Failed earlier this year. It was the same model used in Vineyard Wind, but GE Vernova He told Reuters: The two incidents are unrelated and the investigation into what happened 15 miles off the coast of Nantucket continues.
“Our investigation is ongoing and we are working urgently to closely examine blade manufacturing and quality assurance programs across offshore wind,” the company said in a statement. According to the Boston Herald,“While there is work to be done, we are confident in our ability to implement corrective action and move forward.”
But ultimately, solving the problem and cleaning up the mess the accident caused may be quicker and easier than fixing the damage it has done to public perception of wind. Critics of renewable energy have seized the opportunity. Blame the wind farm The turbine failures have been linked to congressional Democrats pushing a permitting reform bill to encourage renewable energy.
But advocates of wind and other forms of clean energy are quick to point out that it is much safer than fossil fuel production and does not cause leaks, spills or explosions. The industry’s safety record is relatively mature, and Most of the world’s overseas farms Goodrich said it ordered 20,000 utility-scale turbines last year for projects worldwide, but had only a handful of accidents or failures.
Vineyard Wind is one of the first major offshore wind farms in the United States. The massive complex of 62 turbines that will one day produce 862 megawatts is in its early stages of operation. Only 10 were spinning when a blade broke and the federal Department of Environmental Safety and Enforcement shut it down. There’s no word yet on when power production will resume, but clean energy advocates have vowed to make sure it does on Nantucket and beyond.
“We must now all work together to ensure that the failure of a single turbine blade does not negatively impact the emergence of offshore wind as a vital solution to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and solving the climate crisis,” the Sierra Club said. declaration. “Wind power is one of the safest forms of energy production.”
