Updated, Nov. 13
A radio station in Quebec is reporting that top executives at a manufacturing plant in Canada — where turbine blades have been manufactured for Vineyard Wind — ordered workers to falsify data, which offers new insight into what may have gone wrong earlier this summer when a blade fractured off the Vineyard’s coast.
Radio Gaspesie, citing anonymous sources at the end of the October, reported that an investigation conducted by lawyers with GE Vernova — subcontractors building Vineyard Wind turbines — found that senior company executives at LM Wind Power in Gaspé were asking employees to “falsify quality control data.”
The unnamed sources said that the executives created a points system that “encouraged employees to skip verification steps,” which prioritized “production quantity over quality,” the Gaspesie report states.
The station, which covers the Gaspé Peninsula — an area along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River — also reports that the “falsification scheme” may have led to a wave of layoffs at the plant.
The Times could not independently verify the Radio Gaspesie report.
Another publication in the area, Gaspesie Nouvelles, confirmed that some 20 employees have been impacted by the layoffs, though a union representing some of the workers is contesting the decision.
A spokesperson with GE Vernova, in a statement to The Times, did not address the allegations made in the Gaspesie report, but did not dispute them either.
“Following the July blade event at Vineyard Wind, we commenced an extensive internal review of our blade manufacturing and quality assurance program across our offshore wind operations,” the statement reads. “Based on this review, we have taken corrective actions at our blade facility in Gaspé. We are confident in our ability to implement these corrective actions and move forward.”
The latest reporting follows the fracturing of a turbine blade at the Vineyard Wind site in July that was blamed on poor bonding at the Canadian plant. When the blade originally fractured, debris made up of foam and fiberglass eventually washed ashore on Nantucket beaches and, to a much lesser extent, on Vineyard beaches as well.
Vernova has said that since the blade fracture, it has undertaken “extensive quality checks — including the re-examination of more than 8,300 ultrasound images per blade, and physical blade inspections with ‘crawler drones.’”
At the end of October, Vineyard Wind and GE Vernova announced that cleanup was underway to remove debris that had sunk to the ocean floor. In the same announcement, the contractors also said that an unspecified number of turbine blades will be removed from its lease area, 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Reporting from the New Bedford Light indicates that at least 14 turbine blades that were built for Vineyard Wind have been instead shipped to France, likely due to manufacturing defects. GE Vernova operates a blade-manufacturing plant at the Port of Cherbourg. Fourteen is more than GE Vernova officials stated they believed would be headed to France during an earnings call in October. Officials said there were a “single-digit” number of blades that would be removed.
As for the layoffs at the Canadian plant, Gaspesie Nouvelle reports that top officials were impacted, including supervisors and managers. The outlet reports that 11 floor employees were targeted as well, which the local union is contesting.
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 it is developing in the U.K. called Dogger Bank.
The layoffs in October follow an announcement from Vernova CEO Scott Strazik during a call with investors in September. Facing losses of $300 million in the third quarter, with Vineyard Wind stalled due to the fractured blade and the project in the U.K. facing difficulties, the company planned to cut as many as 900 jobs globally.
Meanwhile, the wider offshore wind industry could be facing an uphill battle in the coming years, following last week’s presidential election. President-elect Donald Trump has been highly critical of one of President Joe Biden’s key legislative accomplishments, the Inflation Reduction Act, which put billions of dollars toward encouraging greener energy development. Trump has also made bold statements about the industry on the campaign trail, including that he would sign an executive order not allowing new projects to move forward.
Updated to specify that GE Vernova is building Vineyard Wind turbines.
