Officials of Iberdrola, the Spain-based parent company of Avangrid, which is one of the project’s developers, said last Wednesday that 60 of the 62 turbines are installed, and between 52 and 55 are operational.
“For me, as an engineer, the farm is already completed. In this moment, we have more than 60 turbines, of the 62, which are fully installed,” Ignacio Sánchez Galán, executive chairman of Iberdrola, said to financial analysts in an earnings call. He added that he believes 55 are “in operation” or “exporting electricity.”
Pedro Azagra, CEO of Iberdrola, added, “In the next days, we will install the two remaining ones. And I think from an operation point of view, 52 of the 62, that’s 80, almost 85 percent of them are right now allowed for operation.” Turbines, once constructed and installed, still have to be commissioned to actually operate and generate electricity.
Vineyard Wind officials haven’t announced an update as of March 4 on the construction status beyond what Iberdrola shared in its earnings report.
The last update from project developers before the earnings call came in court documents in January that said the project was 95 percent complete, and needed to only do blade replacement to complete 18 remaining turbines; 44 turbines were able to send power to the grid. The company was in court after the federal government issued the project, and four others, a suspension order due to classified national security concerns, and work was paused for more than a month. A federal judge allowed the project to resume construction in late January.
