The manufacturer of Vineyard Wind’s offshore wind turbines could cut 900 jobs worldwide after facing heavy financial losses due in part to the aftermath of several blade breaks at key projects. 

GE Vernova, the company behind the 853-foot tall turbines being built to the Island’s south, last week proposed the cutbacks to deal with inflation, supply chain challenges and the delays in power production following three separate blade breaks. 

“The proposal reflects industry wide challenges for wind and aims to transform our offshore wind business into a smaller, leaner and more profitable business within GE Vernova,” a spokesperson said in a statement. 

The announcement comes about two months after one of the 107-meter blades at the Vineyard Wind project broke, scattering fiberglass and styrofoam into the ocean. The broken blade has halted power production at the wind farm and delayed construction for weeks in the prime summer construction period. 

GE Vernova is one of a handful of offshore wind turbine blade producers across the globe, and the company declined to say where the layoffs would take place, or how they would directly affect Vineyard Wind. But the company did say it would allocate its resources to support existing projects, including quality control on turbine blades. 

“Executing these projects in a timely manner, keeping safety and quality at the forefront, is a priority for our wind leadership team,” the company said.

The Vineyard Wind blade failure was blamed on manufacturing defects, and the company, along with the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, is investigating the incident. The bureau said this week that the investigation is ongoing, and gave no indication on when the inquiry would be wrapped up. 

Vineyard Wind, which plans to build 62 turbines starting about 14 miles off the Vineyard’s southern shore, has been able to restart construction though any blade work is still on hold. The company, a partnership between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, referred questions about the planned layoffs to GE Vernova.

GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik recently laid out some of the financial hits the company has taken with the blade failure at Vineyard Wind, combined with a pair of blade breaks that took place at an offshore wind project off the coast of England. 

Though the company had expected to become profitable in the offshore wind energy sector in the third quarter of 2024, GE Vernova is now facing a $300 million loss, Mr. Strazik said at a Sept. 12 investor conference. 

“Through three very distinctly separate blade events we had this summer, our installation was stalled substantially,” he said, according to a transcript of the event. “So, we didn’t get anywhere near as much work done over the course of the summer as we anticipated.”

The blade failure is the first of its kind in the U.S. nascent offshore wind energy industry and it could lead to policy changes for projects moving forward, officials have said.