Judge: GE can’t stop work on Vineyard Wind project

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A Suffolk Superior Court judge has ruled that GE Renewables cannot abandon its work on the Vineyard Wind offshore wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard, saying the company has no legal basis to quit and that its departure now would cause “immeasurable” harm.

In a decision issued on April 17, Judge Peter B. Krupp granted Vineyard Wind’s emergency request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order, barring GE from terminating its contracts and requiring the company to keep performing its work.

The ruling prevents GE from acting on its Feb. 27 termination notice, which had set an April 28 end date for its turbine supply and service agreements. It also prohibits GE from slowing or altering its work based on the dispute. The court did not require Vineyard Wind to post a bond — a step sometimes imposed in injunction cases — signaling the judge’s confidence in the developer’s position.

At the core of the dispute is whether Vineyard Wind improperly withheld payments from GE for its services to supply, install and maintain wind turbine parts, or whether those withholdings were allowed under the contract because GE owed the developer far larger sums tied to delays and defects.

Krupp agreed, at least at this stage, with Vineyard Wind’s interpretation of its turbine supply agreement, and accompanying service and maintenance agreement.

“The turbine supply agreement gives Vineyard Wind the right to offset amounts otherwise due to GE,” Krupp wrote, adding that nothing in the contract appears to cap those offsets.

Because Vineyard Wind was entitled to withhold payments based on determination by the project’s independent engineer, the court found there may not have been any “amount due” — a key requirement to justify terminating the contract.

Instead, Krupp suggested GE’s proper course of action should have been to formally challenge the engineer’s findings through the contract’s dispute resolution process. As of now, according to the judge’s findings, GE has not done so.

Reporting by Heather McCarron, Cape Cod Times / Cape Cod Times

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