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Giant wind turbine blades for the Vineyard Winds Project are stacked on racks in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
CNN
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The giant offshore wind turbine blades The glass fibers broke and spread The wind turbine debris and foam shards that spread along Nantucket’s coast this week were among the latest blade failures made by GE Burnova, a major U.S. wind turbine manufacturer.
Multiple GE Vernova blades have broken on onshore and offshore turbines. Germany, Sweden, Lithuania And that England The broken blades in recent years have come in a variety of sizes and types, and the company’s investigation has revealed a range of root causes for the damage, including transportation, handling and manufacturing deviations, according to a company official familiar with the investigation.
A representative for GE Burnova said the failed wind turbine is “highly unusual and rare.” He told the residents of Nantucket Island The company contacted authorities on Wednesday, and a company spokesman said in a statement that the company is “working urgently to complete a root cause analysis of this incident.”
The broken turbine was a major blow to Vineyard Wind. Bright spot Emerging countries and Offshore wind industry struggles In the United States, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has 10 turbines in operation and plans to install 62 in total.
The federal government has suspended operations and construction on the project while it conducts its own investigation into the broken blade.
GE Burnova has been in the spotlight for its Nantucket fiasco, but it is not the only wind turbine manufacturer to have this problem, according to Indra Mukherjee, associate director of clean energy technologies research at S&P Global Commodity Insights.
“It is clear that the major[manufacturers]have experienced blade breakages,” Mukherjee said in an email. The failures were caused by issues including design flaws and manufacturing errors by contractors, he said.
As the global wind energy industry grows, the turbines themselves are getting bigger, but this rapid expansion also comes with “enormous engineering challenges,” with blades in particular emerging as a “significant vulnerability,” Mukherjee said.
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Some of the wind turbine debris that washed up on Nantucket’s shoreline was large and sharp.
Nantucket today
Last year, three GE Vernova blades broke at the Alfstedt-Ebersdorf onshore wind farm in Germany. An independent investigation into the incident is still ongoing and likely not finished until later this year, said Julia Pschribülla, spokeswoman for Energiekontor, the farm’s developer.
Pslybyula said the wind farm would not operate until an investigation was completed and it was determined “there was no risk of other turbines of the same type suffering similar damage.”
Made from fiberglass, wood, Styrofoam and carbon fiber, wind turbine blades must withstand a variety of harsh weather conditions and constant wear and tear, Mukherjee said. Plus, most of the large turbines and blades on the market are relatively new designs, so “occasional failures are inevitable as the industry climbs the learning curve,” he said.
The total number of damaged turbine blades is relatively small compared with the vast number of blades made each year: Wind farm developers have ordered about 20,000 turbines, each with several blades, for 2023.
“Given the scale, the failure rate remains low,” Mukherjee said.
After the debris from broken wind turbines caused beach closures, Nantucket officials questioned the lack of discussion about the risks posed by broken turbines compared with discussion of the impact on the landscape and potential risks to marine life.
“Personally, I never thought of anything like this. I never thought we would be in danger of being in this situation,” said Brooke More, chair of Nantucket’s Board of Elections. He previously told CNN.
A GE Burnova spokesman said in a statement that the company’s “top priority is safety and minimizing the impact of this incident on the communities surrounding the Vineyard Wind Farm in Massachusetts.”
The project would double the number of turbines operating off the East Coast, and Massachusetts leaders see it as a major boost to the state’s generating capacity. Energy analysts recently pointed to this and other recent industry recoveries: A sign of wind energy momentum.
Currently, the project is in limbo and is likely to remain so until the federal investigation is completed.
