A 300 foot section of an offshore wind turbine broke off of the Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, leading to further scrutiny of projects in Connecticut according to CT Insider.
The Vineyard Wind project is a collaboration Avangrid, based in Orange, Connecticut and the Dutch company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Similar technology is being used in Revolution Wind and other projects which will provide power to Connecticut, while the use of the State Pier in New London as a staging ground for wind projects has been touted as a key way for Connecticut to benefit from green technology.
Pieces of the fiberglass wind turbine blade have washed up on shore, and while the environmental impact of a malfunctioning turbine is considerably lower than that of almost any accident pertaining to fossil fuel infrastructure, there is still a need to consider the design and engineering aspects of these projects.
“If we’re going to spend billions of dollars building these wind farms, we need to be sure they are prepared for weather conditions in 2050, not conditions that existed in 2020,” Robert McCullough, managing partner of McCullough Research told CT Insider. “We are unprepared for the rapid nature of climate change. And we don’t have a good sense of how powerful off-shore weather conditions are.”
