One of the installed turbines at the Vineyard Wind wind farm. (Photo courtesy of Avangrid)
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 Reese, the CEO of GE Vernova, said there is no indication of an engineering design flaw with the turbine blade. 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.
Reese said the deviation should have been identified through 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,” Reese said in 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.”
Reese added: “We are going to be thorough instead of rushed.”
Reese 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.
The Nantucket Select Board met in executive session on Tuesday to discuss a legal strategy going forward with GE Vernova, the manufacturer of the turbines, and the wind farm developers, Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. The board is expected to hold a public meeting where the situation will be discussed Wednesday evening.
This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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The post GE suspects ‘manufacturing deviation’ with Vineyard Wind 1 turbine blade appeared first on Rhode Island Current.
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