|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Last week, the 13-megawatt Haliade-X wind turbine with a span of 350 feet experienced its third blade incident in nearly as many months when a “blade failure” occurred at the under-construction Dogger Bank offshore wind farm in the United Kingdom.
It’s the second blade incident for the nearly 300-turbine wind farm, and the latest since the blade failure at the Vineyard Wind farm last month. GE Vernova, the blade’s manufacturer, is looking into the issue to determine the root cause.
In May, the Dogger Bank Wind Farm announced “damage was sustained” to a blade on an installed turbine. A GE Vernova official last month said they see the Vineyard Wind incident and that in the UK as “very likely disconnected,” and that the first UK incident was caused by an installation issue.
Initial analysis by GE Vernova on the Vineyard Wind failure determined it was a manufacturing error, specifically “insufficient bonding.”
A GE Vernova spokesperson in an email statement said the latest Dogger Bank failure on Aug. 22 was an “isolated blade event that occurred during commissioning,” that no injuries occurred, that GE Vernova’s Wind Fleet Performance Management team initiated its investigation, and that safety is the company’s top priority as officials respond.
The spokesperson did not share further information with The Light or answer any questions, such as whether there was a blade breakage and whether the blade was manufactured in Gaspé, Canada, at the same plant where the suspected manufacturing error occurred for Vineyard Wind.
The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Monday told The Light is aware of the Dogger Bank blade incident.
“It is too early to know if there are any similarities with the incident at Vineyard Wind. Our investigation into the Vineyard Wind incident is continuing,” said a BSEE spokesperson by email.
This latest incident is likely to stoke local opposition to offshore wind, which was galvanized by last month’s failure at Vineyard Wind. On Sunday, about two dozens commercial and recreational fishing vessels flying anti-offshore wind flags steamed to the site of the crippled turbine to protest the continued offshore wind development and its impacts on the marine ecosystem. Organizers of the event, most of whom are commercial fishermen, said they had long been opposed to offshore wind but plans to stage the protest kicked into gear after learning of the blade collapse and the debris it left floating and scattered across beaches and fishing grounds.
“The blade collapse was an eye-opener to a lot of people who before didn’t know that offshore wind was a disaster for the ocean,” said Shawn Machie, 54, who is captain of the New Bedford scallop boat F/V Captain John.
Machie led the brigade of fishing boats in tight loops around the broken turbine, which was guarded by another New Bedford scallop boat contracted to protect it from transient vessel traffic.
“It’s a shame it took this long, and something as drastic as this, to bring attention to the damage caused by offshore wind,” he said. “And they are still going full steam ahead.”
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
Editor’s note: New Bedford Light reporter Will Sennott contributed to this story.
NB light and media in general need to stop giving a bully pulpit to those forces WHO HAVE ALWAYS USED any incident or accident to vilify and attack Alternative energy..what when whales were caught in their netting like the one hanging in the NB whaling museum were the whining about saving the whales? Maybe I’m hard of hearing but I don’t hear them whining about fossil fuel pollution or massive oil spills or the plastic waste that clogs rivers and oceans OR are they mostly MAGA operatives trying to attack and destroy an industry which will drive down the cost of electricity for working people and prop up an industry fishing which like whaling has seen better days. Accidents happen Vinyard is working and spending millions to fix it.Time to build the future not cry over some debris which washed up on poor Nantuckets pristine shore. What have they ever done for us?
Let us remember that only Vineyard Wind is using the GE Halide-X turbines and blade. All other projects are using different brands/models
Progress is challenging. Where would we be today if the gas companies had blocked Edison’s electric lighting in New York City in 1882?
OMG. I was a student at UMD when the “Obama Monument” started spewing oil every where. It rained oil! Literally. The thing never worked.