Editor’s note: This piece was done in collaboration with CAI Radio.
The boat left Vineyard Haven Harbor at 9 am, heading southeast past the Vineyard Sound toward the open ocean. For a good hour, all that was visible was the horizon, where the sky meets the sea, a fixture in the maritime landscape that always seems to go on forever.
South of the Island, however, about 15 miles and an hour into the ride, off the bow of the boat, spokes of steel dotted the horizon and gradually grew clearer in the large expanse of the sea. Rows of 800-foot towers, part of the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project, rose up above the blue-green waves, slicing the horizon line. On top of each, spread out like wings, three blades 350 feet long shot out toward the sky. A vast substation, which looks like a figment of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” imagination, juts out of the western side of the site.
In the late morning, as a part of an ongoing collaboration with regional news media outlets in covering offshore wind, MV Times and CAI reporters initially saw only one turbine spinning in the Vineyard Wind project, though in the vast area of thousands of acres, it’s difficult to visually take in all turbines at once. The turbine on the northern tip, AL38, of the lease area wasn’t spinning when the boat came toward the structure. After a few minutes, the turbine did start to move, amid moderate winds of up to 12 nautical miles per hour.
This happened across the lease area, as the vessel traveled through the wind farm for around two hours. Reporters counted between five and nine turbines spinning at different points, and for different intervals of time, in those two hours.
On Wednesday last week, the same day The MV Times and CAI shared in chartering a boat to the Vineyard Wind site, Spain-based Iberdrola, the parent company of Avangrid — one of Vineyard Wind’s developers — reported that the offshore wind project is expected to finish construction by the end of the year. They also claimed that 17 out of 62 turbines were currently sending power to the Massachusetts grid. That would be a significant increase from May, when only four turbines were spinning (reported first by State House News Service, and confirmed with state officials). Critics of the project point out that that is still far from completion on a project three years under construction.
The latest Vineyard Wind status was part of a quarterly investors report that gave the most recent update of the project’s construction progress. Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, based in Denmark.
The Iberdrola report stated that at the end of July, the wind farm is “exporting 30 percent” of projected energy.
“In the U.S., more than one-third of Vineyard Wind 1 turbines are already installed, with more than 25 percent of them already exporting energy,” Ignacio Sánchez Galán, Iberdrola executive chairman, said in the investor presentation.
Questions linger
The recent site visit raised questions on the production of the wind farm. The Times has been able to neither verify the report independently nor confirm disparities between visuals on the ground and the Iberdrola report.
Vineyard Wind has declined to answer questions from The Times and CAI seeking clarification as to why 17 fully installed turbines were not spinning constantly, and if it is possible with this apparent limitation to send 30 percent of the project’s power to the grid.
A lack of response from Vineyard Wind officials has proven to be par for the course. This lack of transparency came under fire this week from Nantucket officials, who have laid out a list of 15 new demands for Vineyard Wind to live up to its promises, including better communication. On Martha’s Vineyard, there appears to be no such coordinated response to public concerns about the failings of Vineyard Wind. Only one town official in Edgartown said that the community was even considering any demands for accountability.
The Haliade-X turbines — manufactured by GE Vernova — are each capable of producing 13 megawatts of electricity, which means the project’s current capacity — the maximum output the electricity generator can physically produce — based on Iberdrola’s report is 221 megawatts. (The project’s full capacity is expected to be 806 megawatts, which is said to be able to power 400,000 homes.)
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s actually how many megawatts the project will send, or how much is used by the grid.
ISO New England, a nonprofit corporation that manages the grid for the six New England states, also measures energy as the amount of electricity a generator produces over a specific period of time in megawatt-hours. Mary Cate Colapietro, an ISO New England spokesperson, said that many generators don’t operate at their full capacity all the time, and that renewable energy sources production can vary based on wind and sun and market prices. The corporation, which administers the wholesale energy market, can’t comment on specific generator output, per an information policy. “If generator-specific data were made public, market participants could use this information to predict the actions of competitors, leading to bidding that could manipulate market prices,” Colapietro said.
At different times of the day, through ISO New England’s resource dashboard, there is a breakdown on how many megawatts of power each type of energy source sends to the grid. Renewables typically account for a small percentage of total energy resources, compared with natural gas and nuclear.
Measurements of the energy mix that includes renewables fluctuate greatly on a daily and even hourly basis. For example, on July 30 at 7:45 am, renewables, such as wind and solar, accounted for 6 percent of the total energy resources used to power the region; within that small fraction of the total, only 11 percent came from onshore and offshore wind, equal to 112 megawatts. Just one day before, around 4 pm, wind sources were 31 percent of the renewable resource mix, equal to 570 megawatts, a third of the region’s installed wind capacity.
Eversource and National Grid, electric service companies, also could not speak to how many megawatts a specific generator produces.
Wind turbine generators are sometimes stopped for corrective or preventive maintenance, which happens more often in the summer and in daytime hours when crews can safely access the structures.
Millwrights, ironworkers, and electricians are currently at work on the steel towers and nacelles as well as blade replacement, said John Dunderdale, business manager at Local Union 56 Pile Drivers and Divers, who completed underwater work on the Vineyard Wind project last year.
On the water, Times and CAI reporters counted 40 turbines installed where the foundation, tower, and blades were all fully constructed. Also visible were around 20 foundations, with no tower, nacelle, or blades, emerging from the surface of the water.
But what remains unclear is how many of those turbines need blade replacement. Last year, the federal government required parts from a Canadian plant that manufactured the blade that failed last July to be removed and replaced. GE Vernova indicated last October that the blade’s fracturing stemmed from a manufacturing deviation. New blades now come from a French plant. The Iberdrola report said 23 turbines were fully installed.
Around 11 am last Wednesday, reporters came upon turbine AT40 in the southeast corner of the lease area, where Wind Pace, a new P-class jack-up installation vessel from Cadeler that installs wind turbines, was in the process of blade placement. There was no active work that morning, but there were two blades on the turbine, one of which was attached to a 150-foot crane from the Wind Pace. A third blade lay across the vessel and hung over the ocean.
Cadeler A/S, a construction engineering company that specializes in offshore wind farm “construction, maintenance, and decommissioning,” per their website, signed a contract with the Vineyard Wind project that started in Q2 2025. Its vessel is under contract until Q1 2026. “The value of the contract to Cadeler is estimated to be between €67 million and €75 million,” a statement from the company said.
There is a 500-meter safety zone around AT40, according to the most recent map for mariners provided by Vineyard Wind. The Times previously reported that the map, which once showed the locations of completed turbines, now displays only foundation locations, safety zones, and an electrical service platform, which makes progress hard to track.
On Wednesday, a vessel called the Rebecca H came toward the boat that reporters were on, and told the boat to move farther from the turbine that was under construction.
At the southernmost tip of the lease area, reporters also came upon AW38, the turbine that saw the blade fracture last July, and was also struck by lightning earlier this year. The turbine was spinning.
No impacts expected
There are approximately 1,500 megawatts of installed wind capacity that are operational — both onshore and offshore — for the entire New England grid as of May 30, but future proposed wind projects total 17,000 megawatts, as the region moves to usher in a grid more reliant on renewable energy, according to ISO New England.
Developers have proposed 38,474 megawatts through battery storage, wind, and solar projects as of January 2025, ISO New England said. But this may look different six months into the Trump administration.
Trump’s massive new federal tax and spending bill, signed into law in early July, terminated tax credits for wind and solar projects years earlier than planned, curbing offshore wind development and possibly affecting the number of solar energy installations.
New deadlines for offshore wind companies to take advantage of Biden-era tax incentives — now available only if construction starts by July 2026, or a project is operational by the end of 2027 — may prove impossible for projects not already very close to the construction phase.
But Iberdrola “expect[s] no impact from new federal budget legislation, as it doesn’t impact 1,000 megawatts under construction,” Galán said in the investor presentation.
Other projects in development under Avangrid and Iberdrola are New England Wind 1 and 2 (20 nautical miles south of the Island), which Iberdrola said held all major federal permits from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and consulting agencies. The projects should qualify for the tax credits if they decide to go ahead with construction, Galán said.
ISO New England: “The corporation, which administers the wholesale energy market, can’t comment on specific generator output, per an information policy.” These turbines produce no power until 6 miles per hour. As wind speed picks up, the turbine gradually increases in power little by little. The turbine only produces its maximum power at around 44 miles per hour. Above 44 MPH or when wind shifts, the turbine shuts down. Also, the turbine can use up to 25 percent of its power in what is called parasitic power. The turbine uses its power to charge batteries, run computers, air conditioning, heating, brakes, and anything a power plant can use. Each turbine has a diesel backup generator.
Hydrocarbon genertors produce no power at at less than one RPM
As RPM picks they produce more power, little by little.
40% of the thermal potential of natural gas generators is lost as waste heat.
When the wind shifts the wind turbines rotate into the wind.
Natural gas generating plants use up to ~25% of their power in what is called parasitic power. The power to charge batteries, run computers, air conditioning, heating, brakes, and anything a power plant can use. Each natural gas generating plant has multiple diesel backups.
Like every police station on Island
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