Food at the wind turbine blade factory

Why did Vineyard Wind 'Blade failure' happen?

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (WPRI) — An extensive internal review of the “blade failure incident” at Vineyard Wind resulted in some employees being suspended or terminated at the Canadian plant that makes the blades. GE Vernova said they were able to trace the problem to a manufacturing deviation from the factory in Gaspé, Canada.

How many wind turbine blades are there?

About 150 blades have been produced at the factory, according to Strazik. He did not say how many of those were created for the Vineyard Wind 1 project, a joint venture of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners that's touted as the nation's first commercial-scale offshore wind farm.

Why did a turbine blade break?

Here is the company's response. A manufacturing problem appears to be the reason for the catastrophic break of a turbine blade in the Vineyard Wind offshore project that caused the giant blade to fold over and pieces to break off into the ocean, according to an executive with the blade's manufacturing company, GE Vernova.

Where is the first offshore wind turbine blade manufacturing facility in the US?

Siemens Gamesa’s blade manufacturing facility Green Port, Hull. Image by: Mainstream Renewable Power. Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA (BME:SGRE) on Monday officially launched a project for the construction of a new factory in Virginia, touted as the first offshore wind turbine blade production facility in the US.

How many wind turbines are there?

There are more than 500 U.S. manufacturing facilities specializing in wind components such as blades, towers, and generators, as well as turbine assembly across the country. In fact, modern wind turbines are increasingly cost-effective, reliable, and have scaled up in size to multi-megawatt power ratings.

Where are GE vernova blades made?

Strazik elaborated that a "material deviation" was identified at GE Vernova's blade manufacturing factory in Gaspe, Canada that "through the inspection or quality assurance process we should have identified." "Because of that, we're going to use our existing data and reinspect all of the blades that we have made for offshore wind," he said.