April 26, 2012
Ohio

Damaged wind turbine still under investigation

Megan Reust, WANE, www.wane.com 25 April 2012

A wind turbine near Payne, Ohio is raising some concerns for nearby residents. Parts of the blades have fallen off.

Huge chunks of debris from a wind turbine are scattered across a field near Payne, Ohio. So far no one including its owner knows what happened. People passing by have been trying to figure out the cause.

“It could be some kind of design problem or it could be or another kind of a situation,” resident Robert Silliman said.

A company called Vestas built this turbine back in 2010. The owner says it’s still under warranty.

“These turbines are designed to last 20 to 25 years they normally do. So this is a highly unusual event,” owner Roby Roberts said.

Roby Roberts with EDP Renewables owns the wind farm near Payne, Ohio. He says it’s rare for the blades of a turbine to shred apart like this one did.

“They (Vestas) have over 10,000 turbines worldwide and we (EDP Renewables) have 28 or more projects in the U.S. and we’ve never seen anything like that happen.”

Robert Silliman lives near the broken wind turbine. He’s concerned these pieces of equipment may not be safe. Luckily no one was in the field when the debris fell from the blades.

“There could be a problem like that. There’s people that work in the fields too,” Silliman said.

Crews have been driving around checking out the damage to see what may have caused this. They hope to learn more through the investigation.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/04/26/damaged-wind-turbine-still-under-investigation/