Five dead after fall during wind turbine installation

Credit: Cosmo Sanderson · Published 1 April 2025, rechargenews.com ~~

Government report blames ‘chaotic and ineffective’ management of project.

Five workers died while installing a Goldwind wind turbine in China after the platform they were standing on collapsed, with a local authority having now issued a damning report into the incident, which prompted multiple arrests.

The incident occurred last year while workers were installing the concrete tower for a Goldwind GWH 204/6.25MW turbine at a 150MW project in China’s eastern Anhui Province.

The EPC general contractor for the 24-turbine project is a consortium of Shanghai Electric Power Design Institute Co and Shanghai Electric Power Installation Second Engineering Co, both of which according to their websites appear to have links to state giant PowerChina.

Numerous other companies were involved in the project, including subcontractors and suppliers of equipment such as the platform from which the workers fell in September last year.

A report released on the incident last month by a local government authority said that workers had been standing on a temporary construction platform inside the turbine tower adding a mortar solution along one of its sections.

While they were doing this, the platform tilted and then fell along with the workers. Emergency workers attended the scene and were eventually able to rescue the workers trapped inside the concrete tower and take them to hospital.

An image of the turbine tower that the workers fell down included in the government report. Photo: Chinese government authority

Five workers aged between 29 and 47 ultimately succumbed to their injuries.

An investigation into the incident found that the installation of the platform from which they were working was not carried out correctly, with the number of points from which the platform connected to the tower insufficient. An anti-dropping mechanism was also not installed as required.

Three people were arrested following the incident by the local public safety bureau and are pending trial, said the report.

The report called for punishment of 26 other people at various companies following the incident, including at the PowerChina and Shanghai Electric subsidiaries.

It said that the construction unit had a “poor foundation” in safety management and the project safety management was “chaotic”

The safety management of the project was overall “ineffective” and the EPC general contractor and the supervision unit project department did not assign relevant management personnel as required, it found.

Shanghai Electric Power Design Institute and the Shanghai Electric Power Installation Company as the EPC consortium members collectively “shirked responsibility” for project management, found the report.

Goldwind was not named in the report as a company that bore any responsibility for the incident.

PowerChina, Shanghai Electric and Goldwind were all contacted for comment.

The accident is likely one of the most deadly in the history of the wind power industry, where it is rare, certainly in the West, to see more than one death during any given incident. Last month, two workers died at an Orsted wind farm in the US after falling from a GE Vernova wind turbine.

There is at least one other wind industry incident where five people died at once. That occurred in 2011 when five people were crushed to death while preparing to erect turbines at a factory in China.

[rest of article available at source]

Source: Cosmo Sanderson · Published 1 April 2025, rechargenews.com

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