Over the summer, there were instances of damaged blades at the Vineyard Wind 1 project in the US, leading to a blade inspection. However, does this blade inspection affect not just the installation for Vineyard Wind 1 but for the Dogger Bank A project as well?
Over the last couple of months, Sea Installer, the primary turbine installation vessel at Vineyard Wind 1, has been dealing with broken blades on the project and has removed them from the project site to a location on land. Only recently has it been approved to restart the turbine installation, but only towers and nacelles are allowed to be erected for the time being. The question is whether this is an isolated incident or not. At Dogger Bank A, which is also using the same turbine as Vineyard Wind 1, the GE Halide-X 13, the last installation cycles have only seen the installation of towers and nacelles. This indicates that the blade inspection done by GE does not isolate itself to Vineyard Wind 1 but affects Dogger Bank A as well. The overall impact of halting the blade installation primarily depends on how long the blade inspection will take and the severity of the issue. When it comes to going back and installing these blades, it is not ideal, but the vessel can do it fairly quickly. It might be a bit more difficult for Sea Installer in the US due to the extra work around getting it barge-fed, but overall, this will be done quickly once commenced.
Image source: Jan De Nul
