Nantucket reaches $10.5 million settlement with GE Vernova over offshore wind turbine blade collapse last year

Eventually, at the height of the summer season, the town had to close beaches — a shocking event on an island known as a vacation destination — and businesses sustained losses as tourism fell in response.

The deal between Nantucket and GE Vernova, the turbine manufacturer, includes the creation of a fund to compensate local businesses for economic harm, which will be administered by a third-party.

A spokesperson for GE Vernova said they were “pleased to have reached a final settlement agreement with the Town of Nantucket to provide compensation for any impacted local businesses.”

The settlement indemnifies both GE Vernova and Vineyard Wind, the project’s developer, from future litigation related to the blade failure. But Mohr and attorney Greg Werkheiser, who handled the case for Nantucket, said there could be additional recourse for Vineyard Wind for actions beyond the 2024 accident.

“Their communications preceding the blade failure, during and after have not been what the community deserves in terms of the timeliness, the fulsomeness of it, the accuracy,” said Werkheiser. He would not elaborate further but said to “stay tuned” for an announcement in the coming weeks.

Offshore wind’s controversies date back to the failed effort to bring Cape Wind to Massachusetts waters, which began some 20 years ago. But the debacle at Vineyard Wind was just the beginning of new problems for the industry.

Considered a key energy source for the clean energy transition, offshore wind has landed squarely in the sights of political opponents — many backed by fossil fuel interests — who want to see the projects canceled.

After years of simmering at the local level, the controversy hit the mainstream with the reelection of President Trump, who’s taken aim at the industry. As recently as this week, Trump suggested that offshore wind is responsible for dead whales washing up in New England — an unproven claim that has been debunked by marine scientists.

Last summer was a moment of promise for the industry. Turbine installations were humming along at Vineyard Wind, set to be the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, as permitting moved ahead for more, large offshore wind projects up and down the eastern coastline.

Vineyard Wind alone would provide 804 megawatts of energy — enough to power some 400,000 homes in Massachusetts, setting the state well on its path to effectively zeroing out its emissions by mid-century. Each subsequent offshore wind project would bring massive amounts of more clean energy onto the grid, making it more feasible to turn away from fossil fuel power plants.

And then the turbine blade broke and, four months later, a national election shook the foundation of the clean energy transition.

One year later, the Vineyard Wind is well past its planned online date of mid-2024, as it looks at completion by the end of this year. Another project in the region, Revolution Wind, which is set to deliver 704 megawatts to Rhode Island and Connecticut, has hit delays with the construction of an onshore substation, pushing its completion date from 2025 to 2026.

Meanwhile, permitting and leasing for other offshore wind projects have been paused by the Trump administration, functionally stopping any projects that weren’t already under construction.

The newly-passed “big, beautiful bill,” which Trump signed into law on July 4, brings new challenges for the industry through rollbacks of clean energy incentives that developers rely on for projects.

On a webpage dedicated to the settlement, Nantucket officials explained that the agreement is with GE Vernova, the manufacturer and installer of the turbine blades — not with Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.

“The Town of Nantucket commends GEV for its leadership in reaching this agreement,” the officials wrote. “By contrast, the Town has found Vineyard Wind wanting in terms of its leadership, accountability, transparency, and stewardship in the aftermath of the blade failure and determined that it would not accept Vineyard Wind as a signatory to the settlement.”

In addition to their concerns about communication with Vineyard Wind, town officials said they were also frustrated that the company has not fully installed a system to reduce nighttime lighting, which it was supposed to install before commercial operations began. “We’re about a year and a half past the start of commercial operations, and the federal government should be calling Vineyard Wind to task for that,” said Werkheiser.

Except, it depends on how ”commercial operations” is defined. According to past statements from Vineyard Wind, the start of commercial operations means the full completion of the project — not the beginning of selling energy to the grid — based on the power purchase agreement governing the project.

So far, there are 25 turbines using the system and by the time the project is completed, the company says all 62 turbines will using it.

In response to the announcement Friday, Vineyard Wind spokesman Craig Gilvarg said the settlement was “the product of diligent, thorough, and cooperative negotiations between the parties over the past year.”

“Vineyard Wind appreciates the good faith, respectful, and productive approach demonstrated by GE Vernova and the Town of Nantucket, which was critical toward reaching this fair and conclusive settlement,” Gilvarg said.

An investigation by GE Vernova attributed the blade failure to a manufacturing issue — insufficient bonding. The company subsequently removed other blades at Vineyard Wind that had been produced in the same Quebec facility. GE Vernova fired or suspended several workers at the Quebec plant after finding that managers there had pushed workers to increase their pace, leading to them cut corners, according to Reuters investigation.

Now that the settlement is final, Amy Boyd Rabin, vice president of policy and regulatory affairs at the Environmental League of Massachusetts, said “we can turn the page.”

“The hope is that the projects that have been permitted can keep moving, can install turbines without manufacturing flaws, and we can get wind energy onto our grid,” she said.

Globe reporter Katarina Schmeiszer contributed to this story

Sabrina Shankman can be reached at sabrina.shankman@globe.com. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.