An incident at the Vineyard Wind offshore wind energy project this week that scattered shards of fiberglass across Massachusetts beaches was the latest in a series of failures involving wind turbines built by GE Vernova.
At least one other GE Vernova offshore wind turbine came apart this year, at the massive Dogger Bank A project off the UK coast, and several onshore wind turbines in Germany and Sweden have also broken in recent years, according to a Reuters examination of recent incidents in the wind power industry.
The turbine blade incidents have been a setback for projects at a time when the U.S. and other governments are relying on wind power in the transition away from fossil fuels to fight climate change. The mishaps have raised questions about the quality of GE's turbines which are widely used across the industry.
"It’s not yet known if that was the result of a faulty installation or an issue with the blade quality itself, but that is the concern," said Chris Dendrinos, a clean energy industry analyst at RBC Capital Markets, referring to the Vineyard Wind incident.
GE Vernova competitor Siemens Gamesa has been working to fix quality issues with its wind power turbines after a spate of equipment failures.
Federal safety regulators on Wednesday ordered Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, to stop operations and cease construction activity pending an investigation into the cause of the incident.
The project is the first major U.S. offshore wind farm and is still under construction with only about a third of its planned turbines in the water.
Vineyard Wind is installing GE Vernova's Haliade-X 13-megawatt turbines, which have 107-meter-long blades. The blade broke about 20 meters (65.62 ft) out from the root, Vineyard Wind said.
The company said the cause of the breakage was unknown.
In May, a single blade on the same model of GE turbine at the Dogger Bank A offshore wind farm also sustained damage, leading its operator SSE Renewables to restrict access to the waters around the project and investigate the cause.
The result of the investigation was not publicly announced. SSE Renewables did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
GE Vernova spokesperson Treacy Reynolds told Reuters that the two incidents were unrelated but did not elaborate.
GE Vernova stock fell 9.25% on Wednesday to close at $165.83 on the New York Stock Exchange.
GE Cypress model onshore turbines have broken at wind farms in Germany and Sweden in the last two years. Onshore turbines are far smaller than their offshore counterparts. GE did not comment on the onshore breakages.
Vineyard Wind said on Wednesday it has removed about 17 cubic yards, or more than six truckloads, of debris from the damaged wind turbine off Massachusetts.
Beaches were reopened on the south shore of the island of Nantucket on Wednesday a day after being closed because of debris that had washed ashore, the town said in a statement on its website.
(Reuters - Reporting by Nichola Groom and Richard Valdmanis; editing by Diane Craft)