August 5, 2022
Massachusetts

Inspection finds no additional ‘imminent’ concerns after blade falls from wind turbine in Gloucester

WCBV | Aug 1, 2022 | www.wcvb.com

GLOUCESTER, Mass. – A massive wind turbine that generates power for an engineering company is looking like a sad shrug as it stands above Gloucester without one of its blades.

The missing blade crashed to the ground over the weekend. It remained, bent and broken in half, at the base of the tower on Monday morning.

Officials said the Gloucester Fire Department responded to the Applied Materials facility on Dory Road at approximately 7 a.m. on Sunday after it was discovered that one of the blades had fallen.

“There were no reported injuries, and no structural damage aside from the damage sustained in the turbine failure itself,” city officials said in a statement.

As a precaution, officials temporarily set up a 450-foot exclusion zone around the turbine. That exclusion zone was reduced after the company gave the city a written guarantee that the area could be safely reopened.

Applied Materials told the city that while the cause of the failure is unknown, multiple inspections of the tower and its two remaining blades “identified no imminent structural concerns.”

Additionally, the company reported that safety mechanisms automatically shut down the turbine after the problem occurred, officials said. The remaining blades are locked into place.

A statement from the city points out that the Applied Materials turbine is separate from another private company that operates two other nearby turbines and sells power to Gloucester.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2022/08/05/inspection-finds-no-additional-imminent-concerns-after-blade-falls-from-wind-turbine-in-gloucester/