Vineyard Wind and GE Vernova settle legal dispute over New England wind farms

Vineyard Wind, a wind?farm developer in New England, announced on Wednesday that it had'resolved' a legal dispute arising out of turbine supplier GE Vernova’s attempt to walk away from its $4.5 Billion project based on claims it owed it more than $300 M.

As part of a settlement GE Vernova announced that it had withdrawn its termination notice sent in February to end the project. It also dropped an appeal against a court order requiring that it continue working on the project.

The companies stated that both sides had agreed to dismiss any pending legal claims. The confidential settlement's other terms were not revealed.

Vineyard Wind's project, an 806 megawatts off the coast Martha's Vineyard (Massachusetts), began operations in February. A federal judge had blocked?President Donald Trump's Administration? from halting construction a month before.

Days later, GE Vernova - which designed, produced and installed the wind turbine generators for the project - sent a warning threatening to cancel its $1.3 billion deal, claiming it owed $360 millions.

Vineyard Wind, a joint-venture between Spain's Iberdrola, and Denmark's Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners sued GE Vernova in response at a Boston state court, claiming that GE Vernova had wrongly threatened commercial viability of the project.

The developer argued that it was entitled to withhold hundreds millions of dollars after a turbine blade fell into the water off Nantucket in 2024.

Vineyard Wind said that the blade failure caused two years of delay after it was discovered that the manufacturing defect?that caused the failure had been widespread. This required the replacement of all other blades.

In April, Suffolk County Superior Court judge?Peter Krupp granted an injunction that prevented GE Vernova's termination of the project. The appeal had been pending until the settlement on Wednesday.

(source: Reuters)