As Vineyard Wind and its turbine manufacturer duke it out in court over hundreds of millions owed to both parties, a federal investigation into what caused the blade failure at the heart of the case remains ongoing nearly two years later. 

Last month a Massachusetts superior court judge issued a preliminary injunction that prevented GE Vernova, the company that built and installed several dozen faulty turbine blades at the offshore wind energy project off Martha’s Vineyard, from walking away from its work at the wind farm.

The blade snapped in July 2024. — Ray Ewing

The case hinges on contract language related to who owes who money. GE Vernova said it wanted to exit from its contracts because it was owed more than $300 million. Vineyard Wind said that it didn’t have to pay any money to GE, because the GE owed Vineyard Wind nearly $800 million because of the delays from the shoddy work. 

While that continues to play out in court, the long-awaited investigation into the 2024 blade break at Vineyard Wind by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the agency that oversees offshore energy production, continues on with no clear end date. 

The bureau itself has been tight-lipped and declined to give a progress report on its work and any of the environmental monitoring that the bureau required of Vineyard Wind. 

“BSEE is ensuring the investigation is thorough and comprehensive,” spokesperson Mike O’Berry wrote to the Gazette last month. “BSSE’s investigation is currently ongoing and does not have a date for completion at this time.”

Though BSEE has investigated incidents at offshore oil facilities, including large-scale spills and explosions, this is the first probe into an offshore wind blade failure for the bureau.

In past statements to the Gazette, BSEE has said that the investigation could entail a combination of witness interviews, an analysis and testing of equipment and a review of documentation from all the companies involved. 

Throughout the inquiry, BSEE has said there is no timeline, though this has already taken longer than the investigation into the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest marine oil spill in history. 

So far the only public explanation for what happened at Vineyard Wind has been supplied by GE Vernova. 

According to the manufacturer, there was a production defect in the blade and several dozen others that weren’t caught in the manufacturing process. 

In its lawsuit against GE, Vineyard Wind claimed that GE admitted that its own poor manufacturing and quality assurance were responsible for the blade failure, and internal reviews concluded the blade had insufficient adhesive bonding on a critical load bearing region of the 114,000-pound blade.

That same defect was also found in nearly all the blades that were made at the same plant in Canada, Vineyard Wind claimed. Press in Canada also reported that GE Vernova’s internal investigation concluded that the plant employees had been instructed by their supervisors to falsify critical data from the quality assurance process. 

In all, 68 of the 72 football field-long blades could not be used, with at least 66 of them having the same defect, necessitating repairs before they could be removed from the turbines, which are located 14 miles south of the Island. 

“The bonding in some of the original blades was so deficient that the blades had to be repaired in place before they could be removed so that they did not collapse into the water,” Vineyard Wind wrote in its lawsuit. 

The Gazette obtained a root cause analysis report conducted by consultant Gulf Wind Technology in a records request from the Department of the Interior, but the entire document, with the exception of the cover page, was redacted to protect GE Vernova’s trade secrets and confidential commercial and financial information. 

GE Vernova has said a manufacturer defect was to blame for the incident. — Ray Ewing

In the wake of the blade break, BSEE mandated that Vineyard Wind submit plans to complete studies that would look at the potential environmental harm caused by the debris and the large section of the blade that sank to the sea floor. 

BSEE did not respond to requests on the status of those studies. Though public records obtained by the Gazette show the protocols that Vineyard Wind proposed to follow, results were not released.

BSEE did allow Vineyard Wind to resume construction later in 2024 as the investigation continued and, after an attempt by the Trump administration to halt the project, the 62-turbine farm installed its last blade in March. 

Last week, Gov. Maura Healey announced that Vineyard Wind’s power generation contracts were going into effect, kicking in stable pricing for the energy produced by the company’s turbines for the next 20 years. 

Her office estimated that the contracts would drop customer bills by 1.4 cent per kilowatt hour.

“Vineyard Wind is a key part of our all-of-the-above strategy to lowering energy prices,” Governor Healey said in a statement. “Throughout one of the coldest winters in recent history, Vineyard Wind turbines powered our homes and businesses at a low price and now that price goes even lower with the activation of these contracts.”

The activation of the contracts has drawn scrutiny from GE Vernova. In court filings on Friday, GE asked the Suffolk County Superior Court judge to reconsider the court’s order for GE to stay in its contract with Vineyard Wind. 

GE contended that the activation of the power purchase agreements with the state and the touting of the accomplishment by the Governor was a sign that the project could live on, even if GE was no longer involved.

“It shows that the extraordinary relief ordered by the Court — compelling [GE] to continue performing under a multi-billion-dollar contract without payment — is not necessary to prevent any imminent or irreparable injury,” GE wrote. “The Court should reconsider and vacate the Order.”

In its request for an injunction, Vineyard Wind said the future of the entire project would be in peril if GE, which needed to do the final commissioning of some of the turbines and was slated to maintain them for at least five years, terminated the contract. 

Gov. Maura Healey has said that offshore wind energy is a key part of lowering power costs in Massachusetts. — Ray Ewing

While the court battle and investigation play out, Vineyard towns are hoping to get a sitdown with Vineyard Wind in the coming weeks to talk about better communication from the wind farm. 

Last year, the Chilmark select board sent a letter to the other five Island towns to consider a new agreement between the wind farm and Island municipalities and the towns began meeting in September. 

The towns’ interest in a new agreement came after Nantucket aired a laundry list of complaints against the project, many of which were illuminated after the blade scattered thousands of pieces of fiberglass on Nantucket’s beaches.

James Hagerty, the town administrator of Edgartown, said there is a tentative meeting scheduled for the middle of May with Vineyard Wind to have preliminary discussions. 

“We’re optimistic to start some healthy dialogue in the near term,” he said.