Damaged Vineyard Wind Turbine Struck By Lightning

The same Vineyard Wind turbine that suffered a blade failure last summer was struck by lightning late last week, the U.S. Coast Guard stated on Sunday.

The alleged incident occurred last Thursday, Feb. 27th, or Friday, Feb. 28th, as there were conflicting reports on the timing, as well as the damage done to the turbine. Vineyard Wind claims no debris has been spotted.

It was, however, the same turbine - known as AW-38 - that had one of its three blades snap into thousands of pieces last July 13th, sending large amounts of fiberglass and foam debris onto Nantucket's shores which forced the town to close all south shore beaches for a full day. While Vineyard Wind had previously removed the large pieces of the blade that were left dangling from the turbine rotor after the failure, the nub of the damaged blade remains attached at the 12 o'clock position on the turbine.

According to an email obtained by the Current from U.S. Coast Guard Command Duty Officer Meghan Manship, the lightning strike occurred on Thursday, February 27th. Manship wrote that the turbine "was struck by lightning on 27FEB25, caught fire, and detached...F/V Madison Kate is o/s and reported no sign of debris."

The F/V Madison Kate, along with a helicopter that took off from Martha's Vineyard, were circling the area around the AW-38 turbine on Sunday, according to marine and aviation radar apps.

Manship did not return a message seeking comment on her email.

On Sunday, Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Lyric Jackson confirmed the lightning strike - stating that it happened on Friday, Feb. 28th, not on Thursday - but could not confirm whether the strike had caused a fire or any further detachments of blade debris.

“We are aware there was a lightning strike on Friday," Jackson told the Current. "We’ve been told there is no debris in the water, but the Coast Guard did not confirm that. That was Vineyard Wind, which sent out an aircraft and a contract vessel that was nearby. They did not find debris. As far as what the Coast Guard is doing, we are just monitoring and communicating with Vineyard Wind.”

Regardless of whether the lightning strike occurred last Thursday or Friday, Vineyard Wind had not informed the town about the incident as of 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, according to Nantucket Select Board chair Brooke Mohr. Thirty minutes later, Mohr told the Current she had received a call from Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moeller about the lightning strike.

"They presume that (a lightning strike) is what happened," Mohr said. "The CEO said they will provide you with details."

By 5 p.m. on Sunday, Vineyard Wind had released a statement to its media contacts (except the Current) about the lightning strike.

“As part of a continuous effort to manage the damaged GE Vernova blade on turbine AW-38, a rigorous action plan has been put into place which includes debris recovery resources, recurrent flyovers to observe the turbine, and ultimately GE Vernova’s planned removal and replacement of the blade in May 2025," the statement read. "Based on a visual inspection of the damaged blade, preliminary evidence indicates that the blade may have been impacted by a lightning strike, though we continue to assess in coordination with GE Vernova. This was contained to the damaged blade, and based on current information there is no impact to the nacelle or turbine structure. Vineyard Wind deployed both aerial and maritime resources and based on current observations, there is no indication of debris from this event.”

The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), which suspended the Vineyard Wind project for six months following the blade failure, did not return a message seeking comment about the lightning strike on Sunday.

According to DNV, a global assurance and risk management company, "lightning damage is the single largest cause of unplanned downtime in wind turbines and the most common insurance claim filed by wind farm owners."

In December 2022, DNV issued an independent certification for Vineyard Wind's Haliade-X turbines based on a "rigorous third-party certification process" and testing conducted on a land-based prototype.

Based on the growing size of offshore wind turbines - with Vineyard Wind's 853-foot Haliade-X model being the largest in the western world - DNV stated that "lightning protection is becoming more and more important for all stakeholders in wind power industry."

According to Vineyard Wind's construction and operations plan, all of its wind turbines were to be equipped with lightning protection.

The German technology firm the Schunk Group, which specializes in climate technology and manufactures lightning protection systems for wind turbines, states that "When lightning strikes a wind turbine, currents of several tens of thousands of amperes flow within fractions of a second - even maximum values of 200,000 amperes have already been recorded. The electrical voltage reaches several million volts. If the lightning protection now fails, the consequences are serious: Not only can overcharge damage occur in the electrical control system, but the rotor blades can also snap off. And not only that. Since the air temperature inside the lightning channel rises abruptly to several tens of thousands of degrees Celsius, fires easily start."