Troubles at factory making Vineyard Wind blades 

At least 14 turbine blades built for the Vineyard Wind project have been shipped to France from New Bedford, apparently due to a manufacturing defect that has resulted in layoffs and suspensions at the blade manufacturing plant in Gaspé, Quebec.

GE Vernova laid off nine managers and suspended 11 unionized floor workers at the LM Wind factory in Gaspé last month in response to the defective blade that broke on a turbine in July, the local union confirmed to The Light on Monday. The Gaspé plant had been manufacturing and supplying most of the blades for the Vineyard Wind project until the blade failure.

Managers at the LM Wind plant may have falsified quality testing data, according to a report from local outlet Radio Gaspésie. Citing anonymous sources, the radio station reported in late October that executives at the LM Wind plant may have asked employees to falsify quality control data, favoring production quantity over quality.

The local union is contesting the suspensions of the floor workers, “who are not responsible for the directives of their former superiors,” said Thierry Larivière, spokesperson for the wind power workers’ national union, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, in an email to The Light on Monday.

The Light requested more information on what directives the superiors gave the workers, but the spokesperson said the union will not provide further comment due to pending legal proceedings.

“I can, however, confirm that the production manager has been dismissed and the general manager resigned,” said Larivière. “The situation is now corrected at the Gaspé plant.”

“The company has taken matters seriously,” said Jean Éric Cloutier, president of the LM Wind Power Workers Union, in an emailed statement to The Light. “In the wake of the investigation concerning the defective blade, nine managers were laid off and 11 union members were suspended. An employee committee has also been created to prevent quality problems reoccurring. We are proactive and determined not to let poor management dictate our fate again.”

The number of layoffs and suspensions at the plant was first reported by Gaspésie Nouvelles, the newspaper in Gaspé.

In a statement to The Light on Monday, a GE Vernova spokesperson said the company has “taken corrective actions at our blade facility in Gaspé,” after “an extensive internal review of our blade manufacturing and quality assurance program across our offshore wind operations.”

“We are confident in our ability to implement these corrective actions and move forward,” the statement continued. GE Vernova did not respond to a question from The Light about the reported data falsification.

Following the blade failure in July, GE Vernova cited a manufacturing defect in its factory in Gaspé – specifically “insufficient bonding” – as the cause. The finding prompted a re-inspection of 150 blades produced at the factory, which included several that had already been delivered to New Bedford.

14 blades shipped to France

Since the blade break, new blades have instead been shipped to New Bedford from LM Wind’s other manufacturing plant in Cherbourg, France. The vessels have been returning to France with other blades – presumably defective blades made in Quebec.

Activity in the Port of New Bedford and vessel trackers show at least 14 blades have been loaded onto heavy-lift vessels in New Bedford and sent to France – including at least four that left the city over the weekend.

The 62-turbine Vineyard Wind project will use 186 blades. A GE spokesperson previously said the company will not specify how many blades are being removed or repaired. However, during an earnings call with investors last month, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik said “a very small proportion, low single-digit proportion, of our manufactured blades in totality also had a manufacturing deviation similar to the blade” that failed at the Vineyard Wind site.

GE Vernova recently announced the Vineyard Wind project must remove an undisclosed number of blades that have already been installed on turbine towers south of Martha’s Vineyard while it repairs others. The repair work, it said, will occur “in the water/at the turbine, in other cases at the [marshaling] harbor [in New Bedford] and our factory in Cherbourg, France.”

The company said it would be “strengthening” the blades “as needed to support the safety and operational readiness of this project.” It is unclear what is meant by “strengthening” – whether it means applying more adhesive or fiberglass – or where in the blade the repair work will occur.

Stéphane Sainte-Croix, who represents Gaspé in Quebec’s parliament, recently wrote on Facebook that the “LM Wind Power wind turbine factory is currently going through a difficult time” and that “part of its senior management has been laid off following an incident on the U.S. east coast last summer.”

“I understand the concern this situation may create among employees and the general population,” Sainte-Croix continued. “I contacted the various ministries and stakeholders involved to better understand the impact of recent events.” He said he would continue to monitor the situation and BSEE’s ongoing investigation.

The Light contacted Sainte-Croix Monday for further information.

A Vineyard Wind spokesperson on Monday said the company had no comment on the reported data falsification. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, better known as BSEE, did not provide comment before publication, as its offices were closed on Monday, a federal holiday.

What’s next for Vineyard Wind

As of July, 24 of Vineyard Wind’s planned 62 turbines were installed, though before the July 13 blade break, only 10 were fully operational and sending power to the Massachusetts grid.

Vineyard Wind’s lease at the staging terminal in New Bedford is set to expire at the end of 2024, but the company has the option of extending it another three months.

It is unclear how much the blade incident will delay the completion of Vineyard Wind. The federal government halted construction during the summer, when conditions are more amenable to offshore installation.

It has been an unseasonably warm November, but offshore construction typically slows down during the fall and winter, when wind and waves are less cooperative with the barges.

Vineyard Wind has continued to install wind turbine towers and nacelles, which are the power generators of the turbine.

The current suspension order from BSEE, the federal agency that regulates offshore wind, continues to prohibit power production and the installation of blades. But it may allow “specific activities” on a “case-by-case basis” under BSEE’s discretion, which an agency spokesperson confirmed could cover the installation of a single blade.

BSEE has been conducting its own investigation into the blade failure and last month said there is “no timetable” for the completion of the investigation.

In remarks at a wind industry conference last month, BSEE Deputy Director Paul Huang on a panel said the agency plans to have a meeting on lessons learned from the Vineyard Wind incident in January.

He said a suspension of operations – which initially happened to Vineyard Wind – is the “biggest” notice a company can receive for noncompliance. Huang added that while the notices of noncompliance issued are generally not public information, the agency is considering sharing them in the future.

“It’s our job to say there’s some stuff that’s not going right,” Huang said, “and our job is also to be generally pretty transparent about that.”

Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sworn in on Jan. 20. The former president could slow down the offshore wind industry, with impacts that could be felt in New Bedford.

“The new American president is very protectionist,” said Daniel Côté, the mayor of Gaspé, in an interview with a TV news station in Quebec this week. “Will he accept wind turbine blades made in Quebec or Canada for wind farms in the U.S., even if the factory belongs to a giant American company? Big question mark.”

The Light has reached out to Côté’s office for an interview on the LM Wind allegations.

New Bedford Light enterprise editor Erick Trickey contributed reporting to this story.