Questions of transparency swirl around Vineyard Wind 

The company only has four turbines generating power after nearly three years of construction.

Just a fraction of Vineyard Wind’s planned offshore wind turbines are in operation despite nearly three years of construction, and the company is staying silent on what is slowing production down and when it’ll actually finish the project.

First reported by the State House News Service, Vineyard Wind 1 – an offshore wind farm 15 miles south of the Island – only has four turbines providing power to the grid, which the Times confirmed with state officials. But that is one less than what was reported in February of 2024, and Vineyard Wind is well past a goal of being fully operational by mid-2024. Avangrid, the project’s parent company, made the prediction during a boat tour of the construction site in 2023.

Now, it is uncertain when construction will finish.

Craig Gilvarg, Vineyard Wind spokesperson, declined to comment after multiple attempts to reach him.

Vineyard Wind’s development had been riddled with setbacks since it began construction in late 2022. The project had missed its milestone goal of delivering power to Massachusetts in 2023 and construction was shut down during a federal investigation of its broken turbine blade in July, which also led Vineyard Wind’s contractor, GE Vernova, to uninstall several blades for reinspection.

Additionally, the company is working under a more hostile presidential administration than before. President Donald Trump has taken actions against the offshore wind industry since his first day back in the White House, including attempts to shut down fully permitted projects. Trump has also been open about his plans to refocus the national energy strategy toward fossil fuels.

By comparison, Revolution Wind – a similarly sized project under construction 12 miles off the coast of Aquinnah expected to [provide on average power equivalent to that used by] around 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut – began construction in 2023 and looks to be on track to meet its goal of being fully operational by next year.

“As of Orsted’s most recent quarterly earnings update, approximately half of Revolution Wind’s 65 turbines were installed,” Meaghan Wims, an Orsted spokesperson, said. Orsted, which owns Revolution Wind, held its quarterly earnings call on May 7.

The haze around Vineyard Wind’s development has been ongoing. The New Bedford Light reported in November that at the time, only about a third of the turbines appeared to be fully installed, despite Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moeller telling reporters earlier that month that he “estimated that the project – including onshore infrastructure – was about ‘80% done,’” though he wouldn’t provide a new date for the project’s completion.

While the developers have not responded to requests for comment, their online outreach has slowed down as well. As of Friday, the last post on the company’s “news” page was an update in October about its response plan after one of its turbine blades shattered in July.

The lack of information can also be seen on Vineyard Wind’s Facebook and Instagram pages, which also have its latest posts being from October.

Additionally, Vineyard Wind’s weekly “active offshore wind mariner updates” emails have not been sent out since April 23. At once regular, the last email had a map, dated April 14, showing 23 offshore wind turbine generators had been completed. As of Thursday, the map on Vineyard Wind’s “offshore wind mariner updates” page, dated to May 19, does not show the locations of the completed turbines and only displays turbine foundation locations, safety zones, and electrical service platform.

Vineyard Wind’s unresponsiveness hasn’t gone unnoticed in the public. Jason Gale, an Island fisherman, noted project representatives haven’t been “all that informative and transparent about operations.” He also highlighted that Vineyard Wind couldn’t be reached or declined to comment in articles he recently read. He questioned how the company couldn’t provide a timeline of when its remaining turbines would be activated.

Gale also said he hadn’t heard back from the company about the whereabouts of the sunken turbine blade piece that was planned for recovery in October. A representative of GE Vernova, who were overseeing the cleanup efforts, was not immediately available for comment.

“They’ve been eerily quiet on all fronts,” Gale said of Vineyard Wind in a text message. “That in my opinion is a red flag.”

It is uncertain how much power is being provided by Vineyard Wind to the regional power grid ISO New England, which Massachusetts is connected to. ISO New England officials declined to provide a breakdown of how much power has been supplied through projects like Vineyard Wind, although the power grid’s 2024 data shows that wind energy provided just 3 percent of electricity in the region.

“Our information policy prevents me from discussing the status of individual resources,” Mary Cate Colapietro, an ISO New England spokesperson, said in an email.

Vineyard Wind is co-owned by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. It’s expected to [provide on average power equivalent to that used by] 400,000 homes and businesses in the state through 62 turbines once completed. The project connects to the grid at Covell’s Beach in Barnstable.

The Healey administration released a statement that while only four turbines are in operation, they are pursuing any means for clean energy production.

“We understand that Vineyard Wind has four turbines powering the grid with more to come. The Healey-Driscoll Administration will continue to pursue an all-of-the-above energy strategy that includes critical affordable resources like offshore wind,” Maria Hardiman, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said in a statement on Wednesday. She highlighted that offshore wind “produced right here in Massachusetts” will “help lower costs, meet rising energy demand, and create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic benefits” for the state.