General – Vineyard Wind
A Massachusetts judge on Friday blocked GE Vernova from abandoning work on the largest offshore wind farm in New England after developer Vineyard Wind refused to pay over $300 million, the turbine supplier says it is owed for the $4.5 billion project.
Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Peter Krupp in Boston issued a preliminary injunction, at developer Vineyard Wind’s request, preventing a GE Vernova unit from terminating their contract and ceasing work effective April 28.
“The project is at a critical phase, and the loss of VW’s principal contractor would set the project back immeasurably and threaten VW’s financing,” Krupp wrote.
Vineyard Wind’s 806-megawatt project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard began initial operations in February, after it convinced a federal judge a month earlier to block President Donald Trump’s administration from halting construction on it.
But days later, GE Renewables US LLC, which designed, manufactured, and installed the project’s wind turbine generators, sent a notice threatening to terminate their $1.3 billion contract, saying it was owed $360 million. Vineyard Wind sued in response, arguing that GE’s action wrongly threatened the commercial viability of the project.
Krupp agreed, saying Vineyard Wind under the contract was likely entitled to withhold money to offset amounts that an engineer concluded GE owed it after one of the turbine blades in 2024 collapsed and fell into the waters off Nantucket.
