National Wind Watch: Wind Energy News » Vattenfall to dismantle Dutch wind farm early after turbine collapse

Vattenfall has decided not to reactivate turbines at a Dutch wind farm after a machine collapsed during stormy conditions earlier this year.

It put the remaining turbines at its 17MW Eemmeerdijk wind farm in Zeevolde into a safe operating mode after one of the 17 two-bladed 1MW NedWind units collapsed in early January.

However, it will take too long to complete the necessary checks for each turbine before resuming operations, so Vattenfall will now move to dismantle them, the company explained.

The Swedish utility needs to dismantle the entire wind farm by the end of the year when its lease for the site expires, and does not believe it can safely check each turbine and resume full operations before decommissioning can start. It will not erect new turbines in place of the existing wind farm.

Vattenfall is currently selecting a contractor for decommissioning, which will come up with a schedule for the project, a spokesman told Windpower Monthly. He estimated that decommissioning will “probably take a few months” and could start before a root cause analysis of the incident is completed.

It is currently investigating the cause of the turbine collapse, and expects to complete the probe in April.

“We are still keen to learn what has caused the collapse in order to make our industry even more safe,” Vattenfall stated.

No one was injured after the turbine collapsed on 4 January, and nearby roads were not obstructed.

Eemmeerdijk was commissioned in 1998, and consists of 17 turbines made by long defunct Dutch manufacturer NedWind. A turbine also collapsed at the site in 2006.

Project operators in Europe will face key decisions over whether to fully decommission their wind farms or repower them in coming years.

Industry body WindEurope expects about 5.6GW of wind capacity to be decommissioned over the next five years as projects come to the end of their life and leases for sites expire. It expects 3.2GW of this to be repowered – leading to 5.2GW of repowered capacity. The remaining 2.4GW will be fully decommissioned and removed from the system.