LAST AUGUST, Avangrid was projecting that Vineyard Wind 1 would be operational by this August. But that seems unlikely now, with only a couple months to go and only about a quarter of the wind turbines installed.
The slow pace of construction isn’t a major problem in the long run, but it suggests building a wind farm off the coast, particularly during the winter months when winds are unusually strong, is not easy.
Everyone is watching Vineyard Wind 1 because it is likely to be the first industrial-scale wind farm in the United States. The trials and delays associated with getting all the regulatory approvals needed to build the wind farm are fairly well known, but the problems with getting the wind farm built remain something of a mystery.
The wind farm’s developers – Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners – have not been very forthcoming about the challenges they are facing. Last August, when they took a boat full of politicians, advocates, and journalists out to the wind farm construction site on a beautiful sunny day, optimism was high. Company officials projected that some power would start flowing from the wind farm in October 2023 and the entire wind farm would be up and running in August 2024.
Those projections turned out to be wide of the mark. The 62-turbine project generated its first power from one turbine on January 2 and company officials are no longer making firm projections about when the project will be completed.
Progress is difficult to track. A map showing turbine installation progress goes out regularly to mariners who ply the same waters off of Martha’s Vineyard. A map dated January 2 indicated six wind turbines had been installed and 41 more turbine locations were at various stages of construction. That left 15 locations where work had not begun yet.
On February 22, Pedro Azagra, the CEO of Avangrid, told financial analysts that 10 turbines and 47 or 48 of the wind farm’s monopiles (the foundations for the turbines) had been installed.
A more recent mariner newsletter included a map dated May 7 that indicated 12 wind turbines had been installed, 35 were in various stages of development, and 15 were in the very early stages of construction, with large rocks positioned around the monopile location for what’s called scour protection.
The maps indicate the number of fully installed wind turbines doubled from 6 to 12 over the four months between January 2 and May 7.
On Wednesday, two weeks after the May 7 date on the most recent map, Craig Gilvarg, a spokesman for Vineyard Wind 1, said the number of installed turbines at the wind farm had risen to 16, with 10 of them either producing electricity or going through the final stages of commissioning. He also said installation of equipment pieces that connect the monopiles to the turbines had resumed after the vessel that had been doing that installation work had been called away to another client temporarily.
“Since entering May, we have experienced far more ideal weather conditions, and are ready for a robust and productive turbine installation campaign in the months ahead,” Gilvarg said in a statement. “We look forward to partnering with the project’s skilled union workforce to deliver more capacity from this historic project.”
Azagra, speaking to financial analysts in February, indicated he had learned his lesson and would no longer make predictions about when wind farm work will be completed.
“To me, it doesn’t matter if we finish in November this year or February next year,” he said. “The important thing is that we finish.”
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