Atlantic hurricane early test for US offshore wind as Vineyard ribbon cutting cancelled

The US’ first commercial scale offshore wind array was to celebrate a major achievement this Friday – installation of its first 13MW GE Haliade-X turbine at the lease site facing Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Instead, powerful Hurricane Lee, the fifth major storm in the North Atlantic, derailed this plan with the developer opting to postpone the ribbon-cutting “out of an abundance of caution”, according to Andrew Doba, head of media relations.

Vineyard is a joint venture (JV) between Iberdrola-controlled Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).

While the hurricane remained over 1,000 km south of Nantucket, Massachusetts, its sustained winds of up to 140 km/hour prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to issue “dangerous surf and rip current conditions” warnings for much of the East Coast. Vessels involved in the turbine installation will head to port.

The storm had briefly reached category-5 level intensity with sustained winds over 249km/h but has since weakened.

Accreditation body DNV has given the Haliade-X, the largest commercially available turbines, its Typhoon certification (Class T certification), demonstrating the machines “can operate safely and efficiently under extreme wind conditions”, GE said.

NOAA upgraded its forecast for the current hurricane season in the North Atlantic to “above normal” on the ongoing El Nino as well as “record warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures,” according to its lead hurricane season forecaster Matthew Rosecrans.

The hurricane threat for the US sector is most prominent in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), which routinely sees devastating storms sweep through that wreak havoc on the region's offshore oil and gas infrastructure.

In 2005, consecutive hurricanes Katrina and Rita that caused massive destruction to New Orleans also devastated the offshore oil and gas industry, destroying 115 platforms and damaging many others.

The Florida 'Big Bend' on its Gulf coast experienced its worst hurricane in 125 years on 1 September, and the GoM has been hit by at least one category 3 storm with sustained winds of 178km/h in each of the last seven years.

Hurricane intensity, frequency, and duration have all surged in the US Atlantic since the 1980s, according to the third US National Climate Assessment report, which forecasts that “hurricane intensity and rainfall are projected to increase as the climate continues to warm”.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) predicts that offshore wind hurricane resiliency will potentially incorporate “smaller blade profiles, fewer blades, highly ruggedised sensors, active advanced load control systems, uninterruptible yaw positioning, or other features that are not found or needed in turbines operating in the North Sea” off northern Europe.