Trump order upends wind industry

White House calls for review just as one Vineyard Wind turbine starts spinning.

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The Vineyard Wind turbine with the broken blade, shown here in August. —John Zarba

Updated, Jan. 22

With President Trump promising measures to curtail the offshore wind industry along the East Coast, Vineyard Wind officials say that one of its turbines is delivering power to the grid for the first time in seven months, following a last-minute approval from the outgoing Biden administration. 

On Friday, the last full workday of the Biden administration, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) lifted a suspension order at the offshore wind lease area, about 15 miles south of the Vineyard. It had been in place since July, following a Vineyard Wind turbine blade fracture. 

But while recent revisions to the operations plans cleared a path to lifting the suspension, the federal agency issued a mandate that Vineyard Wind is to remove all turbine blades associated with a manufacturing plant in Canada, where a faulty blade that fractured in July was constructed. 

The federal bureau, in its order issued Jan. 17, will not allow any blades from the Gaspé plant to be installed going forward, either. 

The order raises questions about potential rising costs on the project, as the nascent wind industry is already struggling with financial difficulties. It also raises the persistent, and so far unanswered, questions around when Massachusetts residents will see the investment in wind power pay off with promised reductions in electric rates.

On a busy last day of the Biden administration, officials also approved a construction and operation plan for South Coast Wind, a project 26 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard that is expected to power 840,000 homes, more than double the 400,000 homes Vineyard Wind is expected to power. The approval came on the last business day before Trump was sworn into office, and wind proponents say the Biden administration was fulfilling a promise of pushing forward with the ramp-up of renewable energy sources. To critics, it was a case of political gamesmanship, and a rush job.

No matter how one sees it, it seems clear that Trump appears ready to deliver on his sweeping promises to shut down offshore wind production in favor of a return to more reliance on fossil fuels, such as coal. 

Just moments after he was sworn in on Monday, Trump passed an executive order halting the approval of new permits at new lease areas for offshore wind, and providing a path to possibly terminate other projects — including Vineyard Wind. 

“We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said recently, summarizing his executive order. “Big, ugly windmills. They ruin your neighborhood.”

Aside from pausing new approvals, the order calls for environmental and economic reviews of offshore wind production already underway. Monday’s executive order states, “With respect to such existing leases, the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Attorney General as needed, shall conduct a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal, and submit a report with recommendations to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.”

The studies will review the environmental impacts of onshore and offshore wind projects on wildlife, including birds and marine mammals. The executive order states further, “The assessment shall also consider the economic costs associated with the intermittent generation of electricity, and the effect of subsidies on the viability of the wind industry.” 

It’s unclear immediately what Trump’s ruling could mean for developments already nearing the finish line in construction. Orstead, the developers of Revolution Wind, which is 12 miles off Aquinnah and is expected to power 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut, released a statement saying it was still looking at the order. “We are in the process of reviewing to assess the impact on our portfolio,” a spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Vineyard Wind said they had no comment on Trump’s executive order. 

Some environmental groups across the country and locally have pushed back against Trump’s order. 

“Offshore wind is a critical part of our region’s efforts to reduce dirty, polluting fossil fuel, create good-paying jobs, and ensure long-term savings for families and businesses,” said Kate Sinding Daly, senior vice president for law and policy at the Conservation Law Foundation. “The potential benefits for Massachusetts and the nation are enormous. We cannot afford to let misinformation undermine the future we value and are working toward.”

 

Going forward for Vineyard Wind

In a separate statement, Vineyard Wind spokesperson Craig Gilvarg said it is delivering power from one turbine, which has met the “project’s stringent safety and operational conditions.”

Also as a part of Friday’s Biden administration ruling, Vineyard Wind will still have to complete an environmental study. The agency also laid out a number of contingencies if a blade fracture were to take place again. 

But the most striking decision in BSEE’s ruling is its not allowing any blades to come from the Canada plant. It’s unclear how many blades will have to come down, and how many already have come down, but the blades were part of 22 turbine towers, out of about 60 in total. 

How much that will cost Vineyard Wind, and if that will translate into added costs for an industry that is already facing financial hurdles, is unclear. Vineyard Wind has not yet responded to a request for comment about the financial burden of the federal government’s recent decision.

Vineyard Wind, in its revised operations plan proposed in December and approved Friday, said that the contractor charged with manufacturing and installing turbines, GE Vernova, found a manufacturing deviation at the Canada plant, which it blamed on “insufficient bonding at certain locations within the blade.” Vineyard Wind said the deviations should have been “detected at the manufacturing plant through inspection and quality control procedures.”

There have been reports from local outlets in Canada that top executives at the plant were ordering workers to falsify quality control data on turbine blades. 

Vineyard Wind, in its updated proposal, said that removing blades is anticipated to result in seafloor disturbance at the up to 22 tower locations where blades will be removed. The developers note that the construction will not be on “sensitive habitats or archaeological resources.” 

Other than the Canada plant, GE Vernova also has a production facility in Cherbourg, France, where turbine blades have been built as well.

In a statement, Vineyard Wind on Tuesday did not respond to questions on how many turbine blades would be impacted by Friday’s decision.

“Following months of extensive work and collaboration with the federal interagency, GE Vernova and Vineyard Wind developed a detailed and rigorous approach to safely resume the construction and operation of the project,” Gilvarg said. “Friday’s action cements this plan as a modification to the COP [construction and operation plan], which strengthens the project’s construction program, ensuring that this rigorous approach will guide all project activities in perpetuity. Going forward, the companies remain committed to safety as the highest priority, and are grateful for the care and engagement with which the federal, tribal, state, and local authorities have approached this project.”