Black (out) forest: Nordex turbine collapses 'almost completely' at German wind farm

Police and rescue workers secure site of collapsed Nordex wind turbine in Germany; Second N149/4500 model turbine at wind farm in North Rhine-Westphalia state has been halted out by OEM as a precaution

A Nordex N149/4500 wind turbine collapsed for unknown reasons at a small wind farm in a forest near Essen in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state.

The incident did not result in any injuries, and police and the fire brigade secured the scene of the accident.

As a preventive measure, a nearby turbine of the same type was provisionally taken out of operation at the 9MW Haltern AV9 wind farm, Nordex said, adding that the manufacturer cannot yet make a statement about the underlying cause of the accident.

“In consultation with the customer, a team of service technicians on site and the main office in Hamburg is now working on further evaluating the situation and the root cause of the incident,” Nordex said in a note sent to Recharge.

The turbine collapsed almost completely around 6pm on September 29, and its nacelle and rotor blades fell to the ground, the OEM said.

It had been installed on a 164 metre hybrid tower in January, and was put into operation in March.

A Nordex press official told Recharge that so far no relevant accident had happened at any of the 1,200 of its N149 turbines that are operating world-wide (with a combined capacity of 5.7GW).

Only 23 units of the N149 in the exact same configuration as at the Haltern AV9 wind farm are operating, all of them in Germany, he added.