New blades for wind turbines

LORAIN — New blades will be installed on four turbines that were shut down temporarily at two locations in the area.

A crew yesterday replaced the blades on the wind turbine at Turtle Plastics in Lorain. New blades also will be placed on three turbines at Perkins High School in Perkins Township.

The four turbines were built by the same company and were shut down to ensure safety after the blades broke off a turbine at Perkins High School.

"We are just really happy to have it working again," said Michele Norton, of Turtle Plastics, a recycled plastics company at 7400 Industrial Parkway. The turbine will be tested and begin producing power today.

The three turbines at Perkins High School, 3714 Campbell St., were installed Jan. 23 to save an estimated $30,000 a year on energy bills for the high school and nearby Briar Middle School on South Avenue.

But on Feb. 7, the blades of one turbine broke off as they spun, winging pieces around the Perkins High School parking lot and football field. No one was hurt in the incident.

Since then, the four turbines, all built by ReDriven Power Inc., of Iroquois, Ontario, were shut down while technicians searched for a cause of the blade breakage.

After a thorough review, the technicians have theories but no firm proof of exactly what caused the blades to fail on the turbine at Perkins High School, said David L. Rengel, vice president of consultant Wilkes & Co., and Perkins school Superintendent Jim Gunner.

"It was a blade failure," Gunner said. "There isn't anything they can point to and definitively say this is what cause the blade to fail."

There was no indication something hit the outside of the blades, causing them to break, Gunner said.

Yesterday, Steve Logan, of ReDriven Power Inc., and Rengel helped change out the blades of the turbine at Turtle Plastics. The turbine and its 66-foot-tall pole were lowered to the ground then re-erected with help from Leimeister Crane Service.

The new 6-meter blades are identical in color, size and shape to the old ones, Rengel said.

However, inside they have a corrugated structure with hollow spaces instead of being filled with solid foam. The design is older than the solid-core foam design, Rengel said.

Turtle Plastics' turbine has a 20 kilowatt generator and operates in winds ranging from 4 to 20 mph.

The turbine also received new sensors to detect temperature, the speed of the rotor and vibrations. The sensors are hard-wired to the turbine's computer control on the ground and will shut down the machine if the wind is too strong or it has mechanical problems.

"If something's going to fail, that's when it's going to fail, when you're pushing it," Rengel said.

The Perkins High School turbines all will get new blades, likely in June once school ends.

The process should take about a week for all three to get new blades, then be tested and turned on again. Rengel and Gunner emphasized they want the machines to be safe before any start generating electric power.

The new blades will be paid for by ReDriven Power Inc. and Wilkes & Co. Perkins schools' consultant, Honeywell, also will cover the cost because that company wrote the energy conservation plan for the school district, Gunner said.