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GreenWeek
ClickGreen’s review of all the week’s news, views, research and analysis with a focus on low carbon and sustainability
Volume 24: Nov 22, 2013
Exclusive: UK wind farms put on
alert as GE suffers blade crisis
Spate of failures in US raises serious concerns about identical models here
By Stuart Qualtrough
ind turbine
GE has
W con?rmed itmakerlaunched
has
a “thorough investigation”
into one of its ?agship models
after a series of blade failures.
The latest mechanical
breakdowns occurred last week
when 48.7m-long blades fell off
TWO separate GE 1.6-100 wind
turbines at different locations in the
US in the space of just four days.
A third blade failure was reported
the previous week at another wind
farm and now GE customers in the
UK are being contacted with news
of the investigation.
The company has installed over
20,000 wind turbines worldwide
and has received several orders for
the high performance 1.6-100
turbine in the UK. To date, GE has
supplied or is under contract to
supply more than 163.10MWs of
wind turbines to the UK.
Fears of a ?aw in the huge
structures could be costly to the
company and heighten public
safety concerns. When Siemens
launched a similar safety probe
earlier this year into two broken
blades on its B53 turbine it
triggered a slump in sales and cost
the head of its wind division his job.
Connecticut-headquartered GE
has been quick to act and says it
will work with its customers directly
to resolve the ongoing issues.
Earlier this month, construction
giant John Laing con?rmed it had
One of the three stricken GE wind turbines last week
placed an order for nine of the
1.6MW wind turbines to install at
its Burton Wold wind farm
extension project in Kettering.
At the time of the
announcement, Ross McArthur,
managing director of renewable
energy at John Laing, said: “GE’s
1.6-100 wind turbines are the right
machines for the Burton Wold wind
farm extension due to their ability
to enhance energy ef?ciency.”
But this week, when asked if GE
had noti?ed the company of its
safety investigation into blade
failures, a spokeswoman for John
Laing told GreenWeek: “This is not
a subject we would want to
comment on.”
The ?rst of last week’s incidents
happened last Sunday when one
of the three glass-?bre reinforced
blades fell off the 80m-high tower
at a wind farm in New York state.
According to local reports, the
failure occurred while the turbine
We are actively
reaching out to our
customer base ... at
times equipment
malfunctions occur
Lindsay Theile,
GE spokesperson
was operating in moderate
weather conditions and just four
days after being commissioned at
the Invenergy-operated
installation in Orangeville.
And on Wednesday, another GEmanufactured turbine blade broke
off at a wind farm in East Central
Illinois – the same location had
previously suffered two further
blade failures. All three blades
were on 1.6MW turbines.
The 1.6-100 model turbine was
already under scrutiny after
another two recent blade failures
at separate wind farms in
Michigan, one at the beginning of
November and another in March.
GE spokesperson Lindsay Theile
con?rmed the events all involved
the company’s 48.7m blade and
all its customers were now being
contacted. She told GreenWeek:
“With any customer event, our
process is to work with our
customer and assign a team to
perform a thorough investigation.
“Since each break is currently
being investigated, we cannot
speculate as to whether or not the
breaks are related.
“We are actively reaching out to
our customer base. Blade breaks in
wind turbines are rare, however, as
with any industrial business, at
times equipment malfunctions
occur. It’s our goal to perform
thorough root cause analyses,
take appropriate corrective action
and bring the turbines back online
as soon as possible.”