Work begins to remove broken Vineyard Wind turbine blade

One month since an incident that sent part of a turbine blade plunging into the Atlantic Ocean and littered debris across area beaches, Vineyard Wind said Tuesday that it has cut away much of what remained from the damaged blade and has been cleared to resume some offshore wind construction activities, though it still cannot produce power.

The company said "controlled cutting operations" on Sunday and Monday "removed a substantial amount of the remaining portions of the damaged blade that pose a risk for further debris falling into the ocean." But Vineyard Wind and blade manufacturer GE Vernova are still trying to finalize plans to do more cutting if necessary, secure and remove debris that fell onto the turbine platform, remove the blade root and deal with debris that's settled on the seabed.

GE Vernova, the company selected by Vineyard Wind to manufacture its project's blades and turbines, said last month that it has "no indications of an engineering design flaw" that could have caused the blade failure, but instead thinks it was a result of an issue in the manufacturing process, specifically "insufficient bonding."

Vineyard Wind also announced that the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which suspended power production and construction operations at the wind farm about 15 miles off Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket in the wake of the July 13 blade problem, has issued a new order allowing the company to resume limited activities. The developer is allowed to continue the installation of towers and nacelles, the housing that covers the turbine itself. BSEE has not cleared Vineyard Wind to resume any blade installation or power production.

Some of that work was getting underway Tuesday morning. Vineyard Wind said a barge was expected to leave the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal carrying several tower sections, one nacelle and a rack of three blades bound for the offshore wind farm site. But the blades onboard are "solely for the purpose of ensuring safe and balanced composition for the transport" and they will not be installed, the company said. Instead, the barge will return them to New Bedford later this week.

Vineyard Wind has 10 operational turbines that, before federal overseers ordered the halt, were delivering about 136 megawatts of power to the grid. Project leaders plan to scale up to 62 turbines providing 806 MW, and Massachusetts and other states are involved in a years-long process to compel private companies to significantly expand the footprint of offshore wind energy in federally leased areas.

At an event in Mattapan Tuesday, reporters asked Gov. Maura Healey about due diligence before starting operations up again at Vineyard Wind.

"It's under investigation by the federal authorities," Healey said Tuesday. "They need to complete that. I hope they complete that as soon as possible. It's important that we bring this back online. It is a very, very important industry to Massachusetts. It's very important for the clean energy future, and I'm confident we get there."

On Aug. 9, Vineyard Wind released a "blade incident response and action plan" that the company said outlines the steps the parties will follow to recover the remainder of the blade on the turbine. Vineyard Wind said the plan was developed in consultation with the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which is investigating the incident.

State House News Service's Michael P. Norton contributed reporting.