After a turbine blade broke, Iberdrola plans to secure $360,000,000 by launching its first offshore wind farm in the U.S., which will generate 806 MW of power.

07/10/2026 14:00

Updated to

07/10/2026 14:00

Iberdrola has managed to resolve one of the major legal obstacles that threatened the completion of Vineyard Wind 1, its first large-scale offshore wind project in the United States. The Spanish company and GE Vernova have reached an agreement to end all pending lawsuits related to the project, following months of disputes over a contract worth around $1.3 billion and a claim of $360 million.

The agreement, announced on September 16, stipulates that GE Vernova will withdraw its notice to terminate the contract, and both parties will drop their pending legal actions.

Manufacturing defects in wind turbine blades

The origin of the issue lies in one of the most problematic incidents during the construction of the wind farm, which occurred in July 2024 when a blade from one of the Haliade-X turbines installed by GE Vernova broke and fell into the sea off the coast of Massachusetts. Subsequent investigations revealed a manufacturing defect affecting other blades, forcing additional work and causing significant delays to the project. Vineyard Wind withheld part of its payments to GE Vernova, while the manufacturer later claimed it was owed hundreds of millions of dollars.

The dispute escalated in February 2026 when GE Vernova announced its intention to exit the contract, claiming that Vineyard Wind owed it $360 million. The developer, held 50% by Avangrid, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, and the Danish fund Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, then turned to court to prevent the manufacturer from leaving the project at a critical stage. In April, a judge in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, issued an injunction requiring GE Vernova to continue working on Vineyard Wind while the litigation was resolved. The company appealed the decision but eventually withdrew it as part of the agreement reached in September.

This is not the first time the project has faced legal issues, as the park itself has already been involved in judicial disputes with the U.S. government. At the end of 2025, the administration ordered Vineyard Wind to suspend operations on grounds related to national security. The developer challenged this decision, and in January 2026, a federal court in Massachusetts allowed operations to resume at the concession site. The ruling cleared the way for completing the remaining work on a project that was already nearly finished and had begun supplying electricity to New England’s grid.

806 MW of installed capacity

Vineyard Wind 1 is located about 24 kilometers south of Martha’s Vineyard and features 62 GE Haliade-X wind turbines, each with a capacity of up to 13 MW. Together, they will have an installed capacity of 806 MW, sufficient to power more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the region. Iberdrola considers it its first offshore wind project in the United States and operates it through Avangrid. The company states that the construction of the wind farm involved billions of dollars in investment, and the facility is designed to prevent over 1.6 million tons of CO2 emissions per year.

The project had reached the beginning of 2026 with approximately 95% of construction completed and was already supplying electricity to New England, but government shutdowns threatened to delay the final phase, while subsequent disputes with GE Vernova posed another risk to the contract. Resolving both conflicts positions the park as one of the most significant components in the development of offshore wind power in the United States.