Vineyard Wind taps GE as supplier of wind turbines

The Vineyard Wind offshore wind energy project selected General Electric (GE) as its preferred supplier of wind turbine generators for its Vineyard Wind 1 project.

Vineyard Wind, owned by Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, is the first utility-scale offshore wind installation in the United States. The 800-megawatt (MW) project will be located 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts.

“The selection of GE as our preferred turbine supplier means that a historic American company will play a vital role in the development of the first commercial-scale offshore wind power in the U.S.,” Vineyard Wind CEO Lars Pedersen said. “This is a huge moment not only for the future of our project but also for the future of an industry that is poised for exponential growth in the coming decades.”

Vineyard Wind 1 will be utilizing GE Renewable Energy’s Haliade-X wind turbine generators, the most powerful in operation to date.

“GE Renewable Energy is proud to partner with Vineyard Wind for the first major offshore wind project in the US,” John Lavelle, president and CEO, Offshore Wind at GE Renewable Energy, said. “To be selected as the preferred supplier is an important sign of confidence for our proven technology and for all our employees around the world. We look forward to making this important contribution to the growth of offshore wind in the US.”

With this news, Vineyard Wind has decided to temporarily withdraw its Construction and Operations Plan (COP) from further review by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to allow the project team to conduct a final technical review associated with the inclusion of the Haliade-X into the final project design.

“While the decision to pause the ongoing process was difficult, taking this step now avoids potentially more federal delays, and we are convinced it will provide the shortest overall timeline for delivering the project as planned,” Pedersen said. “We intend to restart the BOEM process from where we left off as soon as we complete the final review.”

The review should take several weeks, after which Vineyard Wind will resume the Federal permitting process with BOEM. Vineyard Wind still expects to reach financial close in the second half of 2021 and be operational in 2023.