October 1, 2010
England

Wind farm halted by security breach

Rotherham Advertiser, rotherhamadvertiser.co.uk 1 October 2010

Electricity generation at the borough’s first wind farm has been stalled amid a security and health and safety scare.

Plans to get the Loscar Common wind farm, near Harthill, up and running by mid-September were scuppered after a break in at one of the facility’s control rooms saw equipment sabotaged.

The attack followed the theft of cabling from the site in mid-August and has prompted the wind farm’s developers, Cornwall Light and Power, to increase security at the site.

An open day at the site—where three 95-metre tall turbines stand in green belt land between Harthill and Thorpe Salvin—along with testing procedures, have been put on hold in recent weeks to allow security fencing to be installed.

CLP bosses now hope that the site will become “fully energised” on Tuesday in order for a series of tests to be carried out by Yorkshire Electricity Distribution.
Cornwall Light and Power’s construction manager, John Mills, said: “We have had some crime at the site.

“In mid-August we had a large amount of cabling stolen while the contractors weren’t there over a weekend and later that month we had a break-in at one of the buildings.

“Nothing was stolen on that occasion but equipment was damaged.

“The site was not energised at that time so there was no risk to the intruders but after consultation with the Health and Safety Executive we decided that additional security measures would have to be put in place to aid security and safety.”

Work to install fencing on the green belt site was completed last weekend.

Progress can now be made to ensure the wind farm is fully tested before it is linked up to the local electricity grid.

CLP claim that the three 1.5 megawatt turbines will generate enough power to supply 2,180 homes when the wind blows.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/10/01/wind-farm-halted-by-security-breach/