Just a fraction of Vineyard Wind’s planned offshore wind turbines are in operation despite nearly three years of construction, and the company is staying silent on what is slowing production down and when it’ll actually finish the project.
First reported by the State House News Service, Vineyard Wind 1 — an offshore wind farm 15 miles south of the Island — only has four turbines providing power to the grid, which the Times confirmed with state officials. But that is one less than what was reported in February of 2024, and Vineyard Wind is well past a goal of being fully operational by mid-2024. Avangrid, the project’s parent company, made the prediction during a boat tour of the construction site in 2023.
Now, it is uncertain when construction will finish.
Craig Gilvarg, Vineyard Wind spokesperson, declined to comment after multiple attempts to reach him.
Vineyard Wind’s development had been riddled with setbacks since it began construction in late 2022. The project had missed its milestone goal of delivering power to Massachusetts in 2023 and construction was shut down during a federal investigation of its broken turbine blade in July, which also led Vineyard Wind’s contractor, GE Vernova, to uninstall several blades for reinspection.
Additionally, the company is working under a more hostile presidential administration than before. President Donald Trump has taken actions against the offshore wind industry since his first day back in the White House, including attempts to shut down fully permitted projects. Trump has also been open about his plans to refocus the national energy strategy toward fossil fuels.
By comparison, Revolution Wind — a similarly sized project under construction 12 miles off the coast of Aquinnah expected to power around 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut — began construction in 2023 and looks to be on track to meet its goal of being fully operational by next year.
“As of Orsted’s most recent quarterly earnings update, approximately half of Revolution Wind’s 65 turbines were installed,” Meaghan Wims, an Orsted spokesperson, said. Orsted, which owns Revolution Wind, held its quarterly earnings call on May 7.
The haze around Vineyard Wind’s development has been ongoing. The New Bedford Light reported in November that at the time, only about a third of the turbines appeared to be fully installed, despite Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moeller telling reporters earlier that month that he “estimated that the project — including onshore infrastructure — was about ‘80% done,’” though he wouldn’t provide a new date for the project’s completion.
While the developers have not responded to requests for comment, their online outreach has slowed down as well. As of Friday, the last post on the company’s “news” page was an update in October about its response plan after one of its turbine blades shattered in July.
The lack of information can also be seen on Vineyard Wind’s Facebook and Instagram pages, which also have its latest posts being from October.
Additionally, Vineyard Wind’s weekly “active offshore wind mariner updates” emails have not been sent out since April 23. At once regular, the last email had a map, dated April 14, showing 23 offshore wind turbine generators had been completed. As of Thursday, the map on Vineyard Wind’s “offshore wind mariner updates” page, dated to May 19, does not show the locations of the completed turbines and only displays turbine foundation locations, safety zones, and electrical service platform.
Vineyard Wind’s unresponsiveness hasn’t gone unnoticed in the public. Jason Gale, an Island fisherman, noted project representatives haven’t been “all that informative and transparent about operations.” He also highlighted that Vineyard Wind couldn’t be reached or declined to comment in articles he recently read. He questioned how the company couldn’t provide a timeline of when its remaining turbines would be activated.
Gale also said he hadn’t heard back from the company about the whereabouts of the sunken turbine blade piece that was planned for recovery in October. A representative of GE Vernova, who were overseeing the cleanup efforts, was not immediately available for comment.
“They’ve been eerily quiet on all fronts,” Gale said of Vineyard Wind in a text message. “That[,] in my opinion[,] is a red flag.”
It is uncertain how much power is being provided by Vineyard Wind to the regional power grid ISO New England, which Massachusetts is connected to. ISO New England officials declined to provide a breakdown of how much power has been supplied through projects like Vineyard Wind, although the power grid’s 2024 data shows that wind energy provided just 3 percent of electricity in the region.
“Our information policy prevents me from discussing the status of individual resources,” Mary Cate Colapietro, an ISO New England spokesperson, said in an email.
Vineyard Wind is co-owned by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. It’s expected to power 400,000 homes and businesses in the state through 62 turbines once completed. The project connects to the grid at Covell’s Beach in Barnstable.
The Healey administration released a statement that while only four turbines are in operation, they are pursuing any means for clean energy production.
“We understand that Vineyard Wind has four turbines powering the grid with more to come. The Healey-Driscoll Administration will continue to pursue an all-of-the-above energy strategy that includes critical affordable resources like offshore wind,” Maria Hardiman, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said in a statement on Wednesday. She highlighted that offshore wind “produced right here in Massachusetts” will “help lower costs, meet rising energy demand, and create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic benefits” for the state.
While I am all for offshore wind power, and think this project is essential to our future prosperity, this lack of transparency is quite disturbing. VW 1 is the leader in this technology coming to the U.S. As such, they have have an obligation to inform the public about what is going on. They may have great technicians, but it seems they have a public relations team that couldn’t pass a third grade public speaking class. Jason is absolutely correct in his criticism of the company’s lack of transparency– But let me speak directly to the exec’s at Vineyard Wind. I have been fully supporting you for years, through every phase, and have on this forum defended you against the misinformation campaigns, the downright ignorance, the fears, the ,lies and whatever. But I have not done it out of a blind devotion to the company. You have a responsibility to come clean and let the public know what is going on.. Shame on you for your lack of transparency. If you are in any way losing MY support, you have a problem that you really need to address. Any questions ? You can reach me at dkdondondon@gmail.com
Does America produce too much electricity?
THEY SHOULD BE MADE TO STOP NOW AND REMOVE EVERYTHING RELATED TO THE FAILED PROJECT!
It isn’t a failed project. We have an oil industry, and a political party in power that supports the oil industry, telling lies about renewable energy. Let’s focus on the facts instead.
Solar on every roof and wind turbines in every shallow ocean.
What has failed?
Other than one turbine blade.
Jet engines have at least one turbine blade failure a month.
Remove everything related to jet engines?
Vineyard Wind was a scam from the start. None of the promises or projections have come into being; nor will they. The Healey administration is covering for them as are the rest of the supporters of the project. Let’s be honest–after all this time and money, they have nothing to show. Anybody know how many taxpayer dollars went into this? Maybe Trump has the right idea, shut it down before it gets any worse.
What promises did Vineyard Wind not honnor?
Do you know how many tax dollars have gone into Vineyard Wind?
How many more tax dollars will go into Plymouth Nuclear before the plant and it’s ‘waste’ is clean enough to place next to your house.
How much in the way of tax incentives and rebates does the hydrocarbon industry produce?
I am not a ”I told you so’ person. lol. This aint happening and was never going to. Heavily subsidized and still not economic. Wind energy projects, particularly offshore wind, are facing several challenges and growing concerns about their viability globally. While wind energy is for some, a crucial part of the transition to renewable energy, several factors are hindering its growth and development. Its not Trumps fault please.
sad to say the wrong people are doing the jobwith our tax dollars-i voted no because they did NOT POST A BOND iwas the only NO vote-it is my understanding they are smoke and mirrors- PLEASE GIVE US ACCOUNTING FOR EVERY DOLLAR PAID OUT-100% INCLUDING EVERY SALARY AND” COMPENSATION-INTEREST PAID ETC ALL COSTS NOW I think the BOSTON GLOBE SPOTLIGHT TEAM and 60 MINUTES would welcome a story thats hurting our fishing industry and our pocketbooks and the view-BAD TO BE UNINFORMED
These are privately funded projects. They get no return on investment from anyone until they generate energy. Delaying them for 4 years under the Trump administration provided other countries and companies a 4-year head start. There is a 30-year history of offshore wind in the EU region
Can’t wait to see the comments on this!
Over and over the promoters say (being disingenuous) that these giant machines will power X thousand homes. What they don’t say is “at full power”. The capacity factor is not 100% but more in the range of 45%. In other words the actual number of homes is 45% of X. Consider how that math will increase your electric bill.
Vineyard Wind claims a 45% factor, which is optimistic considering that the experience with the North Sea offshore wind projects is less than 40%. What will really increase your electric bill is the need to use very high cost sources of power such as spot market purchases when Vineyard Wind is not generating power due to light winds or mechanical problems. When the total cost impact of the escalating guaranteed power purchase contract and replacement power to balance the load on the grid is taken into consideration, offshore wind is NOT the wonderful cheap source of power the governor’s office endlessly claims. Same goes for the claims about job creation and the contribution to the economy — all bogus.
No surprise here
Isn’t there anyone who has the power to bring a halt to this ill-conceived and poorly managed project? It is giving OSW a bad name — which it may deserve . . .
Vineyard Wind should open it’s books for public scrutiny ?
Will you open yours?
You have a very colorful background.
You haul goods.
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