Report on Ontario wind turbine failures

Wind Turbine Failures

Based on the number of catastrophic wind turbine failures, the Multi Municipal Wind Turbine Working Group (MMWTWG)1 is deeply concerned about the associated implications. While the wind power industry reports that each is an isolated incident, there are now too many incidents for this response to be credible. At least 10 known turbines failures have happened in Ontario since 2007. Each of these resulted in significant portions of blades or the tower hitting the ground at some distance from the turbine base.

At the same time, there has been no public response from the provincial government that indicates these potentially serious incidents are being investigated either in the context of public and/or workplace safety. To date, there has been no information shared with MMWTWG member municipalities.

As a result, we have been working with several people that have technical experience with industrial applications of power and rotating equipment. We have developed our own assessment of the failures based on statements from project operators, pictures and other available information. This assessment of the following events points to a number of different causes:

• Bow River – Pictures suggest that tower collapse was linked to a bolt failure of tower sections.
• Skyway 8 – Rotor failure occurred shortly after the installation of an experimental device.
• Raleigh Wind – Published information from the project owner indicates that the tower collapse is related to a single blade failure. Marks on the tower suggest that the blade struck the tower.
• Sumac Ridge – Blade fractures , no explanation available.
• Kingsbridge 1 – Fire in the nacelle spread to the blades resulting in wide debris scatter.
• Huron Wind – Blade failure with the location of the debris thrown by this failure highlighting the inadequacy of current setbacks from property lines.

Another recent incident in New Brunswick adds to our concerns:

• Kent Hills, NB – Project operator linked the collapse of tower to a foundation failure.

Collectively, the assessments of these situations increased our concern that action is required to formally investigate these incidents. We believe they clearly demonstrate that the current setback distances are inadequate to protect the public and they will increase as tower heights and blade lengths increase.

Faced with continued public inaction by the provincial government, the MMWTWG decided to prepare this summary of available information relative to these failures with a goal of sharing the information with other municipalities that host wind turbine projects to enable them to better protect their citizens.

The MMWTWG recommends that the provincial government needs to:

1. Establish a formal public process for investigations of wind turbine failures so that the cause can be firmly determined. These would involve third-party independent engineers starting with initial inspection procedures through to the public release of the final report;

2. Complete comprehensive inspections of existing projects to identify any project that shows signs of similar weaknesses;

3. Establish requirements for on-board predictive maintenance equipment for operating wind turbines to allow early identification of problems and establish protocols for information transfer to the MECP for review and sharing with the host municipality.

4. Review the emergency response procedures submitted by the proponents of wind turbine projects as part of the approval process to ensure that the plans are current and responsive to the types of failures being experienced; and

5. Increase the setbacks from property lines to a minimum of tower height plus blade length for new towers or repowering of existing sites to at least reflect the impact of a tower collapse while recognizing additional distances would be required to protect against ice throw and debris scatter like that seen in the Huron Wind failure where debris with the dimensions of a car were found 2.5 times the height of the tower plus blade length.