Wind turbine toppled by too much wind
A WIND turbine nearly double the height of Nelson’s Column was toppled by too much wind after 50mph gusts caused it to “overspeed”, an investigation has found.
The 300ft structure crashed to the ground with its blades completely snapped at the £20million Pant y Wal wind farm in Gilfach Goch, near Bridgend.
The incident prompted an urgent safety investigation into the entire farm as families living nearby described sounds of “thunder and lightning” before it fell on the morning of Monday Feb 14.
An investigation by turbine makers
Nordex found the collapse was caused by the turbine running in an “overspeed condition” for four hours.
A Nordex spokesman said: “A root cause analysis investigation determined that a technical issue, starting within an Uninterrupted Power Supply cabinet for one of the blades, triggered an unprecedented chain of events in quick succession.
“This disabled the main power supply and the backup power supply to each blade of the pitch system, therefore all three blades of the wind turbine were left without power resulting in a fixed state.
“The wind speed conditions on the day increased putting the wind turbine into an overspeed condition until it colshe lapsed.” Residents living near the wind farm told of their shock at the time of the collapse. The incident came in the same week that Storms Dudley and Eunice caused chaos. Villager Ricky Williams described it as “a bang like thunder early hours”.
One resident said: “It was around 7am and fairly dark. My wife has stables about half a mile from the wind farm. said she heard odd pulsing noises and then heard the crash about 30 minutes later.”
The 10-turbine Pant y Wal wind farm opened in 2013 at a cost of £20million to generate enough power for 18,000 homes, until the one was wrecked.
The incident raised safety concerns over other wind turbines across the Welsh valleys, prompting Nordex to inspect all the remaining turbines at Pant y Wal. Speaking at the time, antiwind farm campaigner Rhodri Williams, part of STOP Y Bryn Onshore Wind Farm, which straddles Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot, said: “You can imagine if one of those comes crashing down that it is not going to be too far away from people’s homes.”
The company concluded any likelihood of human injury was considered to be low and no further action was taken at the farm. It added: “Temporary measures are being implemented to reduce the likelihood further. A permanent solution is [also] being developed.”