The contractor hired by Vineyard Wind to install 62 turbines south of the Island is reporting significant financial losses amid damages to turbine blades in multiple projects, and most recently, they are announcing intentions to downsize while pushing forward with billions of dollars in unfinished work.
GE Vernova, which has contracts to manufacture and install turbines around the world, said last week that they plan to cut as many as 900 jobs.
“The proposal reflects industrywide challenges for wind, and aims to transform our Offshore Wind business into a smaller, leaner, and more profitable business within GE Vernova,” a spokesperson told The Times in an email statement.
The announcement was made in a report to the European Works Council, which represents workers. Vernova did not specify where the job losses would be felt, but a spokesperson did say that they plan to finish out existing projects, including Vineyard Wind.
Last week’s announcement comes as top officials told investors earlier this month that they are losing approximately $300 million in the current, third quarter.
“Having lost two months during the summer when, frankly, because of weather dynamics, those were important months for us to get a lot done on behalf of our customers,” GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik said, according to a Sept. 12 transcript of a call with investors, “we’ve had to take a step back and look at the costs that are needed to complete the $3 billion backlog we have.”
It’s unclear whether or how job opportunities for Vineyard Wind will be impacted by the recent announcements, especially with regards to workers. A Vineyard Wind spokesperson has referred questions to GE Vernova. But the jobs that have been flagged for Islanders are slated for when the project is further along in construction. Vineyard Wind officials have stated the project will create 90 operations and maintenance jobs on the Island, with expectations that half of the workers will be living on Martha’s Vineyard.
With a broken blade reported at the Vineyard Wind site earlier this summer — due to what officials say was a manufacturing flaw at its Canadian facility — the offshore wind project is no longer delivering power to the grid, per an order from the federal government. Vernova also reported two fractures at a project they are developing in the U.K. called Dogger Bank.
The fractures, officials with the company have said, not only led to delays on the construction project itself; they are hurting the bottom line of Vernova during a time when the nascent offshore wind industry is already facing troubles due to rising construction costs and global supply-chain challenges. Vernova has said that these are industrywide issues that competitors also are facing. Even without blade failures, some projects have run into financial issues before construction. Avangrid, for example, pulled a project in 2022 to renegotiate electricity rates. Vineyard Wind had hoped to be finished with the project this summer.
“Through three very distinctly separate blade events we had this summer, our installation was stalled substantially,” Strazik told investors earlier this month. “So we didn’t get anywhere near as much work done over the course of the summer as we anticipated.”
The CEO did give an update, stating that work was continuing.
“We’re doing towers and nacelles in Vineyard, and we’re approaching restarting with the blades in Vineyard in the near term, too,” Strazik said. “But we’ve got to rebuild momentum on that process, because time is an enemy for us here, although we’re going to do everything with safety and quality first. Because the longer it takes to execute on the project … the longer you’re paying for vessels. And we really need the next 90 days here to start to reaccelerate our installation and commissioning in the fall.”
Meantime, Vineyard Wind is facing scrutiny in Tisbury as it works with a contractor to build housing for its workers. A project on Spring Street in Vineyard Haven that would create nine bedrooms for wind workers has been a lightning rod of complaints from residents in the area.
What we have here is a SNAFU.
Does that mean the government funds will be cut accordingly?
Brenda–Could you clarify which government funds you are wondering about ?
Ge Vernova is a global company based in Cambridge Mass.
As far as I can tell, it gets no U.S government assistance , except of
course, huge corporate tax write offs and breaks for things like their
corporate jets, and 3 martini lunches,
The actual subsidiary of this company that is actually building the blades is in Canada.
I cannot find any subsidies from the Canadian government for this particular
manufacturing plant, other than of
course, huge corporate tax write offs and breaks for things like their
corporate jets, and 3 martini lunches.
In case you don’t know, Vineyard wind’s construction cost are
privately financed. No money from the
government has been allocated for the construction
of this project— None– Zip== Nada—
Any questions ?
But, since VW 1 is currently not producing power,
they are not receiving any monies related to their
tax equity agreement. No power generated,, no tax credit
applied. Easy peasy. So yes, none of the federal government’s
money that they get from people all the over the country is going into
“subsidizing” your electric bill.
When is enough enough?
When is enough oil?
Christopher, enough is when every roof has solar panels. Every building is energy independent. Enough is when the entire planet is utilizing solar and wind power and there is no longer a need for a grid and electricity is free.
Only then is it enough.
But Keller told us that the wind business is booming. ”we have had to step back and look at the costs”. ”all our competitors are facing the same cost issues” ”We lost time over the summer due to the blade issues” He told us about 44 billion in revenue without telling us the profit. Its easy to sell dollar bills at 99 cents each Keller. Ok composting might be enough and hanging wet clothes on the clothesline.
Well, andy– we seem to have a bit of a paradox here.
I have noticed that nearly everyone who is opposed to
these projects cite “foreign companies” making
billions of dollars. So either business is booming
and people are making billions of dollars,
or it is not and investors are getting a negative ROI.
Can’t have it both ways….
And as far as all the crap about government subsidies.
you know as well as I do they will be getting tax credits
only for electricity actually produced.
So how about we put meters of dryers and
give people a discount if they dry their clothes only
when the “intermittent” energy is being produced.
All voluntary of course. Like the water heaters that had a
“time of day” meter on them in the 80’s and 90’s to
balance out peak demand.
Andrew, let’s not gloss over the trillions per year that the oil industry steals from people all over the planet. They colluded with the car industry to create a market and a desire for unique transportation.
I encourage everyone to continue to acquire electric cars, throw a few solar panels on the roof of the garage, and enjoy nearly free transportation for the rest of your life.
Vote yes for Harris.
Some facts
President Biden “set a goal to install 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030, which is enough to power more than 10 million homes for a year.” The science surrounding climate change also addresses the year 2030.
But the year 2030 also is very significant ans science by the IPCC and most scientists agree that we must have reduced Co2 significantly by 2030. There is this statement…
If we do not significantly reduce CO2 emissions by 2030, the likely consequences include: further acceleration of global warming, leading to more extreme weather events like heatwaves, floods, droughts, and storms, rising sea levels due to melting ice, significant damage to ecosystems and biodiversity, potential food insecurity, increased risk of mass migration due to climate-related displacement, and a substantial increase in the cost of adapting to climate change impacts, making it significantly harder to mitigate the worst effects in the future. (AI overview)
We will not make it even if Biden’s plan for powering 10 million homes because
“If we do not significantly reduce CO2 emissions by 2030, the likely consequences include: further acceleration of global warming, leading to more extreme weather events like heatwaves, floods, droughts, and storms, rising sea levels due to melting ice, significant damage to ecosystems and biodiversity, potential food insecurity, increased risk of mass migration due to climate-related displacement, and a substantial increase in the cost of adapting to climate change impacts, making it significantly harder to mitigate the worst effects in the future.”
But also, the reality is that even if we were able to power 10 million homes, and even if we did it by 2030, it would simply not be enough. For example, The number of housing units in the United States has been growing year-on-year and in 2022, there were approximately 144 million homes. Even powering 10 million homes if we can, would not be nearly enough and of course homes are only one piece our economy.
The idea is meant well. It is not sufficient. There are serious problems with the effort itself and we need to understand, we need new ideas. And we need them soon.
Frank– PHfff —-those silly scientist keep talking about
more powerful storms. I haven’t seen a single one here
on the Vineyard.
Frank, we need the windmills. We need solar panels. We need energy storage (batteries and other storage technology).
We still need the windmills.
If some homes 🏡 are powered by wind and some are powered by solar, did we miss the goal of powering all homes with wind power?
And you’re absolutely correct. Every roof, including businesses, should be covered with solar panels. Every dry cleaning company should be utilizing solar panels so they can have free electricity. Can you imagine the competitive advantage that would be? One energy intensive business is using free energy and the other down the street has grid power that is very expensive; which business would you rather own?
Frank,
What the acceptable amount of CO2 that the planet can flourish without doing damage? Enough with reducing, what’s the science?
Carl–https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/what-ideal-level-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-human-life
Don,
I read the article but they say “a good argument” for what they think is the optimal co2 number. Sorry and argument is not fact based science.
Less is better.
Project 2030
Solar panels on every roof. Solves so many problems.
No, it doesn’t.
It solves a few problems for the person who own the roof.
Especially the subsidies—they might help some people pay down their credit card debt.
Katherine, could you please explain in some detail what you mean?
Solar panels pay for themselves in about 3 years then you have free electricity for the rest of your life. How is that bad?
Solar panels cost around 25k to 30k to install if you pay upfront and even more if you finance them. So your numbers are wrong because they can not possibly save you about 9k a year in electricity costs which is about $800 a month. They don’t work well in cloudy weather or winter months and never at night.
Saro, you can buy a small system, complete with batteries, from Signature Solar for $8,000.
The system operates at night because the system has batteries.
If you have a mansion, you may need to spend $30k.
My suggestion is to finance yourself, purchase outright (do not lease). And if you’re handy, do some of the work yourself.
Will they be taking their windmills with them when they go? Broken blades, light pollution, 100s of lay-offs, controversial housing plan, injured wildlife … What a scam.
Sara, the naysayers have been throwing up roadblocks to the windmills for many years. So, those artificial hurdles make windmills a scam?
They will handled the same way as dismantling nuclear plants.
Tax dollars.
The debris will not be radio active.
be glad it happened now…there’s only one broken whirlygig on the horizon…I predicted numerous failures in future hurricanes…hopefully…this example will save us from the worst case scenario…take the loss and move on to Tidal Power…
Is tidal whale friendly?
are man made reefs using sunken boats whale friendly…
when whales come close to shore and crash into things it means they have spirochetes in their brain and the echo location isn’t working…they are dying in other words…
I wish I could have done a better job with providing the residents of the local community and all the citizens of the Cape an Islands with more information on the adverse effects of industrial pollution and economic impacts.
Hopefully the truth will prevail and we can put an end to the disastrous consequences of industrial wind on our fickle and fragile economy and environment.
What are the adverse effects of extracting, transporting, processing, leakage and burning of hydrocarbons?
Tell us the truth, before it’s too late.
Do a better job.
Clean wind energy is absolutely necessary and it is a fairly new Industry in the USA. In Europe it is working very well so we need to be patient and keep on supporting the industry
Europe does not have seasonal hurricanes moving along the coast…it’s a whole different story…
Steve, China has been very successful at extracting energy from windmills in hurricanes. If the Chinese can do it, so can we.
China heavily sensors/controls the news so you would never hear anything possibly negative about offshore wind there given that is what the powers that be want. Mention Tenamin Square and go to jail.
Europe has the North Sea.
Near hurricane most every month .
Steve– they may not have “seasonal hurricanes ”
moving along the coast, but they sure do have
some hurricane force winds pretty frequently.
Note that many of the storms listed in the link had huricane force winds
associated with them.
In 2006 Brita had gusts up to 174 mph
Undine — jan ’99 produced waves of 98 ft on the open ocean
Also, many of these storms occur in the winter.
Any good sailor will tell you that colder air is heavier than warm
air and therefore packs more energy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_windstorms
Hmmm. Germany disagrees with your statement
I don’t think so, Schaetzchen.
A modern German economy doesn’t work without cheap, reliable Russian natural gas pounding through the pipelines all day, every day and also creating the pressure needed for usable gas storage.
https://hir.harvard.edu/germanys-energy-crisis-europes-leading-economy-is-falling-behind/
And this is the just the green-ideology-toeing Harvard International Review.
There is pressure to develop electric storage, such as large batteries.
when…?
Steve, China extracted 384 megawatt
hours of electricity in 24 hours,
from one turbine September 2023.
And just a few days ago:
“With maximum sustained winds
reaching 234km per hour (145 miles
per hour), Yagi was the second-most
powerful tropical cyclone of 2024. It
is the strongest storm to hit China
in 75 years.
Zhang wrote that the OceanX platform
had “experienced Typhoon Yagi
successfully.”
https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/watch-as-super-typhoon-batters-worlds-largest-two-headed-floating-wind-turbine/2-1-1706325
Kathryn– Today , Britain shut down its last coal fired
power plant. Here’s an excerpt from the story
“In 1990 coal provided about 80 percent of Britain’s electricity. By 2012 it had fallen to 39 percent, and by 2023 it stood at just 1 percent, according to figures from the National Grid. More than half of Britain’s electricity now comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar power, and the rest from natural gas and nuclear energy.” I guess they don’t mind having
their tv turn off in the middle of a soccer game. And Bob, do you think
they are driving around in cars powered by “intermittent” power sources ?
Read the whole story here : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/britains-last-coal-fired-electricity-plant-closes-ending-142-years-of-coal-power-in-the-uk By the way nothing about it on Fox “news” today– I wonder why ?
Nathaniel, thank you.
Cutting funding could likely lead to a possible graveyard out there, just a guess. I would hope mitigation is part of the contract should the oppositions pressure prevail.
Vineyard Wind only receives direct funding if they are generating electricity.
What do you say after you warned everyone from Washington ,Beacon Hill, and the local community’s?
You can say please don’t waste another 25 years an a trillion dollars on this useless political Ponzi scheme that never delivers.
Like nuclear?
David, eventually you say, I told you so.
Katherine, will there ever be a day when VW will say, “I told you so” when they are finally producing power?
This is a construction phase, not a phase of “it didn’t work.”
GE Vernova obviously understands the defects in the blades, and is doing all they can to protect themselves and their shareholders.
More blades will fall. Get ready.
Also, they know that the class action lawsuits by all the people negatively affected by the beach closures because of the blade failures (hotels/restaurants/shops) will start being filed just like when there are oil spills. Everyone will get sued involved in the project. Just not worth it as insurance companies will think twice about insuring offshore wind projects.
Sari, every business would require insurance. “Insurance” is a red herring.
How many wind blades are there?
How many have failed?
Higher rate than jet engine blades?
Mary, GE Vernova is doing back flips to make sure they never lose another blade.
The manufacturing employees who made the mistakes must be so embarrassed to be in the limelight. Wonder how we would feel if we were the individual who made the mistake?
Mary Chalke is a very well-known anti-wind political operative from Nantucket who creates and spreads misinformation frequently. Her postings can be found all over social media sites.
Why is Microsoft looking at nuclear energy to power its AI needs? Because it’s proven and correct.
Proven and RELIABLE!
Katherine, solar and wind power are proven and reliable.
Were Three Mile island, Chernobyl and Fukushima proven reliable?
Plymouth?
Wade, nuclear is just another climate-damaging way to produce energy.
Instead, buy some solar panels and exit the grid.
Or build a windmill in your backyard and exit the grid.
Wind and solar have super low environmental impact and provide nearly free electricity.
People who sell nuclear power plants don’t want you to know that solar and wind power are much cheaper and safer than nuclear.
Companies that sell power to the grid don’t want you to know that wind and solar power are super efficient and inexpensive.
Oil barons (Putin, Tim Dunn, and the Wilks brothers are all oil barons—maybe you know others?) certainly don’t want you to switch to free wind or solar power.
The oil industry is earning about a trillion (yes, trillion!) per year! And they are now losing in the neighborhood of Ten Billion per year to electric cars.
Say no to oil barons.
Say NO to nuclear power.
Say yes to solar.
Say YES to wind power.
Say YES to Harris.
Mary you never tell us how Nuclear is unsafe. Chernobyl yes due to communist carelessness but all the others you are wildly misinformed. France is 70 percent nuclear for electricity and has been for 40 years. Is that enough for you to tell us its safe.
Andrew, the people of Idaho Falls are dying from cancer. You continue to bulldoze over that fact. People dying is not my preference when choosing a type of electricity.
No nuclear.
andy– I would imagine that you would tell us that
chemical plants are safe because only a small percentage of
them actually catch fire or blow up and kill people. I wonder if
you remember when France and other countries
were disposing of their nuclear
waste by putting it in barrels and dumping them into the North
sea. Most of them are still there, but some whackpo environmentalist
are trying to retrieve them. Who’s paying for that ?
or do you think they should just leave them all there ?
But in case you forgot : https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/tracking-radioactive-barrels-in-the-atlantic#:~:text=Over%2034%20separate%20operations%20between,out%20in%201967%20and%201969.
Andrew, all of the nuclear accidents on the planet count. It doesn’t matter how it was caused: people making a mistake, Putin bombing it, Putin cutting off electricity to the reactor to cause a meltdown, a tsunami, or whatever other reason. The resulting radiation catastrophe still kills people.
$ 1.8 billion and 4 years to restart the old reactor if it is approved and inspected.
See you is 2028 for a follow-up status conversation at that time
Tim, I’ve got my fingers crossed 🤞 that the nuclear reactor never reopens.
Glad we sold out the commercial fishing industry for all these jobs and so if there laying hundreds off why do they need to build educomp into a giant employee housing?
The commerical fishing industry is alive and well.
Catches are up.
John, once the construction is finished the fishing will be amazing.
Sometimes people cry, “censorship” when they don’t like the facts being presented. Or “fake news.”
Trump often lies to his audience by using those terms.
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