Wind Turbine Safety

Wind turbine safety has recently been in the news when two turbines collapsed. As the BBC (News England, 2013) report the first 35m turbine collapse occurred on 27th January on East Ash Farm in Bradworthy and was closely followed by an unconnected collapse of a 17m turbine on Winsdon Farm in North Petherwin on 30th January.  

The East Ash Farm turbine had been installed by Dulas where as the Winsdon Farm turbine was a Gaia-wind construction. Both firms are now in the process of investigation in to the reasons for the incidents. 

Dulas stated that they had never experienced an incident like this (Collins, 2013). At first there were claims that the turbine had caught fire, although Dulas have said this is not the case (Collins, 2013). The turbine was built to last 25 years with a 5 year warranty but it is expected that the 50mph winds were simply too much for the £250,000 structure (Gray, 2013) despite it being built to withstand winds up to 116mph (Collins, 2013). 

Gaia-wind, however have potentially established the issue that caused the collapse of their 17m turbine and have written to 15 owners of the same model of turbine to ensure that further checks are carried out on those also. The issue effects their first generation towers built before 2010 (BBC News Cornwall, 2013) which have since been replaced. 

East Ash Farm collapsed turbine (Gray, 2013. Source: SWNS)

Collins (2013) reported on 1st February how the investigation in to both collapse is not ruling out suspicions of sabotage as it is claimed that bolts were missing from the base of the turbine on East Ash Farm. Councillors have suggested that foul play may have been involved (Collins, 2013). 

Both incidents are still under investigation and it is not yet known what the outcome may be. 

For more information on the Bradworthy collapse click here.

For more information on the Winsdon Farm collapse click here. 

References

BBC News Cornwall (2013) Wind turbines alert after Cornwall collapse, BBC News Cornwall [online]18 February, Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-21496222 [accessed on: 20 February 2013]

BBC News England (2013) Wind turbines 'safe' despite collapses, says industry, BBC News England, [online]3 February, Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21304669 [accessed on: 20 February 2013]

Gray, L. (2013) Wind Turbine Collapse in High Wind, The Telegraph [online]30 January, Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9837026/Wind-turbine-collapses-in-high-wind.html [accessed on: 20 February 2013]

Collins, N. (2013) Sabotage suspected at toppled wind turbine as second is brought down, The Telegraph [online]1 February, Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/9841848/Sabotage-suspected-at-toppled-wind-turbine-as-second-is-brought-down.html [accessed on 20 Febrary 2013]