Wind on the Island

A Nantucket time line

Man in Nantucket trying to clean up the beach. From Nantucket Current Facebook page.

Bigger and Bigger?

Wind turbines have been around for quite a while. They have been getting bigger and bigger, because they can capture more wind when they are bigger.

The wind turbine blade that failed recently at Vineyard wind was one of the biggest ever: A GE Haliade X-13 wind turbine, rated at 13 MW, with turbine blades slightly longer than 100 meters. A meter is approximately 1.1 yards

The blades are longer than a football field.  Robert Bryce has a great description of the turbine (and the incident) in his excellent post, Breaking Wind.

Breaking Wind

“But here’s the critical part: its blades are 107 meters (351 feet) long and weigh 70 tons. In addition, the rotor of the massive machine spans 220 meters. For comparison, the wingspan of a Boeing 737 is 34 meters. In other words, the turbines at Vineyard Wind are nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower and each of their blades weighs more than a fully loaded 737. “ 

For my part, I’ve been trying to put together a timeline of this situation. It’s hard, and my timeline is incomplete. But here goes.

April 2024  How common are these huge turbines? 

According to a website that compares wind turbine models, the first one of the General Electric Haliade X13 models was installed in 2023.

Making large wind turbines is a challenge. In April, GE   cancelled the development of its 18MW wind turbine, saying it would concentrate on developing it 14-16 MW models.  In response, New York cancelled offshore wind projects that had been planning to use the larger type of turbine.

Meanwhile, a wind farm is under development at Dogger Banks, off the coast of Britain. It will contain a mixture of GE Haliade-X 13 wind turbines, GE Haliade-X 14.7 wind turbines, and Siemens Gamesa 14-222 DD wind turbines.

Such huge turbines are usually considered suitable for only for offshore wind farms.  Onshore wind farms generally have smaller turbines.  For example, GE Vernova, who makes the Haliade series of turbines, advertises 2, 4, and 6 MW turbines for many onshore uses.

Bigger and More Difficult May 2024

As turbine blade sizes increase, internal stresses also increase.  As internal stresses increase, the turbines can become more vulnerable to failure.

For example, in early May, a GE  X-13 wind turbine installed at Dogger Banks had a blade failure. Scott Strazik of GE Vernova management said that the problem was due to an installation error.

As I try to put this timeline together, I can’t help but notice how much information is missing. 

UPDATE: The Dogger Bank failure was the first week in May, and the surrounding marine area was restricted. I did not have the date when I first published. Thank you to Annette Smith of Vermonters for a Clean Environment for the link. The cause of the failure is not publicly documented.

In contrast, the Vineyard Wind failure is more thoroughly documented.  When pieces of a turbine wash up on beaches, it is hard to hide the situation.

Lawsuits on land July 2, 2024

On July 2, 2024, American Electric Power sued GE Verona for failures at their land-based turbines. AEP bought “hundreds of turbines” from GE Verona, mainly for wind projects in Oklahoma.  AEP claims that “Within only two to three years of commercial operation, the GE wind turbine generators have exhibited numerous material defects on major components and experienced several complete failures, at least one turbine blade liberation event, and other deficiencies..”.

AEP claims to have incurred millions of dollars in costs to date and expects further failures in the future.  The lawsuit is being heard at the New York Supreme Court.

Vineyard Wind Failure July 13

The Vineyard Wind failure timeline starts on Saturday evening, July 13, 2024.  That is when a blade at Vineyard Wind began breaking up and falling into the ocean. Understanding the situation is complicated.

When did what people notice the problem? Who was told about it?

Let’s start with the charter boat captain, Captain Carl Bois, who was in those waters on Sunday July 14.

His retrospective appeared in the Nantucket Current on July 18. A few quotes:

“On Sunday while I was tuna fishing, I was east of the wind farm (and, no, there is no secret tuna bite there). I started to notice a crumb trail of what appeared to be white and green Styrofoam which led me to bigger and bigger pieces as I approached closer and closer to the wind farm. …(I found some bigger pieces) ….. From a boater’s perspective, this was really concerning. ….. A piece that size is no joke. This could seriously hurt a boat…..

“On Sunday, over the radio, I heard someone (presumably Vineyard Wind) talking about needing gloves to pick up fiberglass so that it didn’t penetrate the hands. So that led me to believe that they were picking up debris on Sunday afternoon and yet they hadn’t notified anyone…. I took photos and documented what we saw in the water. I sent the photos to Jason Graziadei of the Nantucket Current. It was Jason who reached out to the Vineyard Wind media contacts to see if there was a connection.”

The Nantucket Select Board was not informed of the problem until Monday July 15. As the Nantucket Current reported: Why Did Vineyard Wind Wait Two Days to Alert the Town About Its Damaged Turbine? Vineyard Wind claimed that it had notified the town earlier.  However, when challenged, Vineyard Wind could not produce copies of the notification that they had supposedly sent. 

By Wednesday July 17, the problem at Vineyard Wind was no longer a secret. Chunks of the wind turbine were washing up on Nantucket beaches.  On July 17 evening, the Nantucket Selectboard met and invited the CEO of Vineyard Wind to answer questions at the meeting.  Klaus Moeller, the CEO, came to the meeting but left abruptly.  He said that there was “a development to the integrity of the blade” and he had to respond to that.  As a matter of fact, more of the damaged blade fell into the water Thursday morning. A 300-foot-long piece of the blade was in the water at that time.

On July 17, the Federal government, through its Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) placed a stop work order on the wind farm. Vineyard Wind was required to stop producing power, stop the installation of new wind turbines, and preserve evidence that may be relevant to the failure. (Not all work on the Vineyard Wind project has stopped.  Cable-laying is still underway.)

Later in July: Beaches Open, Beaches Closed, Beaches Open

The history of the problems at the beach became very hard to follow. 

Beaches were open over the weekend of July 13, but then they were closed, and then they were reopened. At the selectboard meeting, Vineyard Wind described the debris of styrofoam and fiberglass as non-toxic, but Nantucket officials urged people to not handle the materials with bare hands. (Echoing the radio information that Captain Carl Bois overheard.)  The materials are being collected by the government, and Nantucket is urging people not to dispose of the material in their trash, which is landfilled on the Island.

Mass Fiscal Alliance, a local organization, has a solid article about the beaches.

GE Vernova blamed a “Manufacturing Deviation” for the Vineyard wind failure, and plans to reinspect many blades.

Lawsuits

Nantucket has a “Good Neighbor Agreement” with Vineyard Wind about notification requirements.  Was that agreement violated? At any rate, the selectboard plans to renegotiate it.

There will be many lawsuits. Vineyard Wind is clamming up.  In the same Nantucket Current article as the renegotiation of the Good Neighbor Agreement and the ongoing cable laying, we have this quote:

“GE Vernova and Vineyard Wind representatives again declined to answer some questions, including how much of the blade has been recovered, what financial compensation Vineyard Wind will offer, and what the potential risks of consuming local fish and shellfish may be.” 

The one lawsuit I was able to find online is that the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association is asking the First Circuit Court of Appeals to re-open an earlier lawsuit.

I am sure there will be more lawsuits. I would expect that the entire island will soon be weighed down with the extra weight of class action lawyers coming to town.

Come for the Problem, Stay for the Cover-up

It’s the old story.  Come for the problem, stay for the cover-up. The cover-up is usually more interesting. And the cover-up is what gets people angry.

The coverup started with delays in notification, followed by reassurances that the material is “nontoxic” but should not be touched.   And so forth.

To Engineer is Human

In terms of the actual problem, the blade failure, I think they have been making the blades too long. The history of suspension bridges is similar.  The beauty of suspension bridges seduced engineers, and they began making the bridges longer and lighter. Until the suspension bridge in Tacoma, Galloping Gertie, collapsed in spectacular fashion. But engineers learned from experience. New suspension bridges have more reinforcements.  I recommend the Henry Petroski book “To Engineer is Human.” 

I don’t think this Vineyard incident should be the death of wind turbines. There are other problems. A major problems is that offshore wind is not as reliable as people assume it is. (See my earlier post, Sea Winds). Also, offshore wind is a very expensive way to make electric power. I think these are bigger problems, going forward. The engineering will be solved. Just as we did for suspension bridges, we should be able to build right-sized wind turbines.

Honesty is honorable

Companies should be honest with the public.

I’m tired of “stay for the coverup.”

Much honor to the Nantucket Current for their coverage of this incident. I hope they get a Pulitzer!