Vineyard Wind sues GE Vernova in new twist in US offshore wind market

At the end of February 2026, Vineyard Wind, developed by Iberdrola and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, was sent a termination notice by GE Vernova in which it claimed that the developer had failed to pay US$308M owed to the wind turbine OEM. Responding to the termination notice in a filing submitted to Suffolk Superior Court, lawyers acting on behalf of Vineyard Wind said the company “brings this urgent motion to prevent its most important contractor, turbine supplier GE Renewables (GE Vernova) from abandoning the project on the eve of completion, dooming the project to failure.”

The submission to the court confirmed that GE Vernova had sent a termination notice asserting that there are ‘amounts owed’ to it for milestone payments under the parties’ turbine supply agreement dated 4 June 2021. Vineyard Wind said GE Vernova was threatening to terminate the agreement and the related service and maintenance agreement. It described GE Vernova’s claims as ‘frivolous’ and said they defied the plain language of the contracts.

Vineyard Wind further stated that GE Vernova has no right to terminate the contracts and seeks to do so at the project’s most vulnerable stage. Commercial operation is scheduled to begin, and the project’s financing is scheduled to convert, both of which depend on GE Vernova performing as promised.

“The Vineyard Wind project can only succeed if GE Vernova continues to use its unique and irreplaceable proprietary technology and tools so the GE Vernova wind turbine generators can produce power at a commercially viable level,” said the filing.

“The project’s success depends on GE Vernova standing behind its critical ‘yield warranty,’ which guarantees the commercial performance of the wind turbines.” The company said that walking away “threatens the project’s very survival.”

The filing submitted to the court said GE Vernova’s termination "fails at each step." It said its claim that it is owed ‘amounts due’ for milestone payments is contrary to the language of the agreement.

“Put simply,” said the filing, “Vineyard Wind owes nothing to GE Vernova because the agreement allows Vineyard Wind to withhold amounts the project engineer determines that GE Vernova owes from milestone payments otherwise due under the contract.”

Vineyard Wind’s submission said, “Those setoff amounts are substantial because GE Vernova caused catastrophic injury to Vineyard Wind by installing 68 defective blades on 24 wind turbines, resulting in two years of delay and more than US$1Bn of damages.”

It noted that, in July 2024, one of the GE Vernova blades collapsed and fell into the waters off Nantucket, necessitating an environmental cleanup, and requiring a six-month construction hiatus during which GE Vernova undertook a ‘root cause’ analysis, concluding that 68 of the 72 blades installed at the project – nearly all manufactured by GE Vernova in Gaspé, Canada were also defective because they were inadequately bonded together.

“The original blades were so poorly made that they were beyond repair. Indeed, the federal government required GE Vernova to remove all of the blades and to replace all Gaspé blades with others manufactured at a different facility in Cherbourg, France,” said Vineyard Wind’s lawyers.