Vineyard Wind’s Troubles Mount Despite Political Victory Lap
Troubled windfarm is producing less than half the promised output, sensors are repeatedly tripping offline, and it’s engaged in a legal battle with its turbine manufacturer.
Two summers ago, we began following the saga of the Vineyard Farms offshore wind project and its blade failure near Nantucket.
After one blade failed and fell into the water, the beaches were littered with sharp fiberglass shards, creating a suboptimal condition at the height of the summer tourist season. The continuing investigation into the cause of this environmental contamination incident determined that a manufacturing flaw in the blade was responsible for the failure.
Subsequently, residents of Nantucket began demanding the end of these mammoth offshore wind farms, and fishermen protested at the site of the blade failure.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey declared victory last month, celebrating the completion of Vineyard Wind as a shining beacon of “energy independence” that would slash electricity costs.
“Vineyard Wind is a key part of our all-of-the-above strategy to lowering energy prices,” Healey said. “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. Especially as President Trump is taking energy sources off the table and increasing prices with his war in Iran, we should be leaning into more American-made wind power to lower costs, create jobs, and make our country more energy independent.”
This past winter, Vineyard Wind lowered electricity prices by competing in wholesale electricity markets. In those markets, it consistently offered lower prices than other sources of electricity. This activation of the utilities’ contracts further lowers the price of electricity generated by Vineyard Wind.
However, the celebration may have been premature. Apparently, the wind farm is producing barely 300 megawatts (less than half the promised output), and sensors are repeatedly tripping offline.
In a May 1 court filing, Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moeller said the project’s current average output is roughly 300 megawatts, and 13 of the 62 turbines are not yet activated.
Significant remedial and repair work is needed to address “recurrent operational issues,” Vineyard Wind officials said in court documents.
The problems include sensors that repeatedly trip, causing the turbines to shut off and curtailing their performance and power generation.
Vineyard Wind is struggling with operational defects and legal battles after the completion of its first major U.S. offshore project off the Massachusetts coast. https://t.co/t9sfVd7DQ8 pic.twitter.com/nCxTz7VGIs
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) July 5, 2026
Furthermore, the developer is locked in a bitter $853 million lawsuit to stop turbine-maker GE Vernova from walking away from the project, which would essentially leave it a “dormant wind farm graveyard”.
A Boston judge has affirmed his own ruling that temporarily blocks GE Renewables from exiting its contract with Vineyard Wind, compelling the subsidiary of GE Vernova to continue servicing and maintaining the wind farm southwest of Nantucket.
Judge Peter Krupp this week rejected a pair of motions from GE Renewables that asked him to reconsider his previous order and send the case to arbitration. GE Renewables, the manufacturer of the offshore wind turbines used by Vineyard Wind, has been trying to leave the project, arguing that the offshore wind company owes them $300 million.
Vineyard Wind has countered by claiming that it is actually GE Renewables that owes them $500 million stemming from the collapse of a GE-manufactured turbine blade in July of 2024, which littered Nantucket’s beaches with debris and forced the wind farm to temporarily shut down while the cause of the break was identified. Ultimately, more than 60 blades had to be replaced. Vineyard Wind has also said that GE Renewables’ exit would endanger the very existence of the project, possibly leaving behind a “dormant wind farm graveyard”. So far, the courts have sided with Vineyard Wind.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts’ latest offshore wind procurement round has been delayed yet again, pushing the contract completion deadline to January 29, 2027, and leaving the process roughly two and a half years behind schedule.
Massachusetts selected 2,678 megawatts of offshore wind power spread across three projects in September 2024, kicking off contract talks that are expected to result in higher prices for power than past projects. During the repeated delays, one of the selected projects has removed itself from consideration and another raised the potential for a multi-year delay.
Officials say contract negotiations are still ongoing and are expected to result in higher power prices than in previous rounds, extending uncertainty for developers, ratepayers, and the region’s climate and energy planning.
It appears that when you build a $4.5 billion monument to green ideology on the Massachusetts coast, break a 351-foot turbine blade and dump 57 tons of fiberglass debris onto Nantucket’s beaches, then run out of money to pay the contractor who installed your turbines, the laws of physics and finance remain very strongly in place.
Here’s hoping the good people of the region have enough energy for both “heat domes” and the winter season.
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
None of this is a surprise, all of it was predicted. It was a boondoggle from the get-go.
Get those polluting.monsters out of the water now.
I just finished a road trip – There is a 60 mile stretch on I80 between Des Moines to iowa city with about 300 wind turbines. By my count, there were approx 30-35 that were broken, stuck , non spinning. that is around 10% of the wind turbines out of operation. that is an exceptionally high failure rate for turbines with average age of 10-12 years.
AI reports that the non operational rate is 1%–2% which is directly contradicted by my physical observation.
You need to go the rest of the way in Iowa western Iowa is worst, the new crop for Iowa is wind turbines
its been about 15 years since the last time I drove north of des moines on I35. I recall considerable wind turbines north of Ames.
I’ve seen some in Wisconsin, heart breaking
I am not defending wind farms, but keep this in mind: at least some of those not spinning are just not on line; they may be perfectly functional.
Curious about the wear and tear by not spinning. Without delving into the engineering, Blades locked from spinning maybe causing more wear via the torque resistance on the structure than wear on the bearings.
Although a FL resident, we still have a home in Massachusetts. Our electric rates in MA are horrendous, and Healey’s follies pushing NetZero is just making them worse.
Don’t worry. Hochul is approving a new natural gas pipeline, actually 2 of them, to supply New England with cheap reliable energy. hahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha
They all like that. Legacy media refuses to cover the failures of biden green new steal.
“Especially as President Trump is taking energy sources off the table and increasing prices with his war in Iran…”
She cannot help herself. She has political Tourette syndrome. Everything has to include a two-minutes hate on DJT.
Never mind the fact that we don’t get out energy from Iran and that we’ve become net exporters of petroleum, she has to bleat out her nonsense.
🤡
All that and Trump is aggressively promoting development of modular nuclear reactors.
that has been my thinking over many years. Consider the small contained long lasting reliable nuclear power units that provide the massive horsepower to drive almost all our massive naval vessels. Those units have proven reliable over decades.. Take that technology, plop it somewhere there is a source o cooling water, plug it in and use as much juice as you want. I hve been aboard one o the large nuclear aircapht carriers. I’ve also lived in a town that was about the size o ONE deck on that monster portable steel city. Humans spend months at a stretch in those vessels, NO issues with radiation contamination.
My bet is that our everloving Atomic Energy Commission are being bribed to squelch the widespread installation o these powerplants.
We’re in an abusive relationship with the government of Massachusetts and a massive majority of people here don’t care.
They will vote to destroy their own finances all day long.
I hate this place.
Agreed
Wind turbines are monsters on both land and water. The cannot be easily broken down into manageable pieces, are a landfill nightmare, and as costly to take down as they were to raise up.
Massachusetts politicians should be stuck onto the end of the blades (use your imagination) and allowed to rotate until they come to their senses, if that is even possible,
Giving new life to the phrase “sit on it and rotate.”
It’s a shame that Greenie tech is failing the citizens so atrociously, but if it must happen, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard is precisely the place it deserves to happen.
Yep and the only way the sheep will come to understand the failures of ‘green energy’ …is for the rest of us to do nothing and allow these fools to experience the inevitable result of their folly. No financial bailouts. No new transmission lines bringing in electricity from out of State. When their grid collapses maybe they’ll reconsider their choices. The majority of the voters decided to elect politicians who championed ‘green energy’ nonsense. They made their choice, not us, we shouldn’t do a dang thing exempt force them to live with the consequences.
Now, do the Hamptons and Aspen.
So governor, you are proclaiming lower prices while higher prices are being negotiate. You’re are either an idiotic fool or a damned liar.
“You’re an idiotic fool and/or a damned liar.”
There. I fixed it for you.
Not sure how the contracts to lease the site under the water is done, but in Michigan’s farming thumb I’ve seen a lot of signs saying to beware signing contracts for windmills on your land.
Employment opportunity for democrat spin doctors.
I really don’t care one way or another about wind turbines as long as oil, coal, nuclear, and natural gas supplies are not artificially suppressed and that no government subsidies are given. If someone has a use which makes the profitable, great.
The only thing that I would like to see is that builders be required to post a bond to remove the things if the company goes under.
Don’t you mean ‘when’ the company goes under?
Are there ANY of these wind turbine farms funded by private enterprise, or are they all taxpayer-funded?
Leave a Comment