This story has been updated.
Top officials at GE Vernova said they believe a “manufacturing deviation” at a facility in Canada is the likely cause of a turbine blade breakdown at Vineyard Wind 1 that resulted in foam and fiberglass washing up on Nantucket.
Scott Strazik, the CEO of GE Vernova, said there is no indication of an engineering design flaw with the turbine blade, which is one of the biggest in the world. He said the company is re-inspecting all of the 150 blades that have been manufactured at a plant in Gaspe, Canada, to see if the problem occurred with other blades.
Strazik said the deviation — later identified as a “insufficient bonding” — should have been caught during the company’s quality assurance process. He said the re-inspection process will rely on ultrasound and other techniques to identify any problems. The Vineyard Wind 1 project will remain on pause while the investigation of what went wrong with the blade is conducted.
“I have a high degree of confidence we can do this,” Strazik said on a call with financial analysts in connection with the company’s second quarter earnings release. “We’re not going to talk about the timeline today. We have work to do.”
Strazik added: “We are going to be thorough instead of rushed.”
At a meeting Wednesday evening of the Nantucket Select Board, GE representatives were quizzed about how the re-inspections will be conducted, given that some of the turbines have already been installed at the wind farm.
Roger Martella, the company’s chief sustainability officer, said ultrasounds of the blades were taken as they came off the manufacturing floor and he said the re-inspections will focus on rechecking those images. He called it a “desktop exercise.”
Matt Fee, a member of the Select Board, asked how the “insufficient bonding” wasn’t discovered before the blade left the manufacturing plant. “How would you miss that?” he asked.
Martella said that question is part of GE’s investigation into what went wrong.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, GE Vernova appeared to take full responsibility for the situation and the suspension of construction at Vineyard Wind 1 ordered by the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE.
“We do not have an indication as to when BSEE will modify or lift its suspension order,” the filing states. “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. 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.”
Strazik said the Cambridge-based company is continuing to install turbines at the Dogger Bank wind farm in the United Kingdom, which is using the same 13-megawatt Haliade-X turbines as Vineyard Wind 1. Previously, one of the blades there broke but that was blamed on a faulty installation.
Vineyard Wind 1 is a joint venture of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. The wind farm is slated to operate with 62 wind turbines, 24 of which have been installed. Before the suspension of construction, 11 of the turbines were generating electricity and 13, including the one that broke, were undergoing testing.