Wind turbine blades collapse in grounds of insurance giant

Aviva says investigation underway as locals report 'almighty crack'

An investigation is underway after wind turbine blades fell to earth in the grounds of a UK insurance giant.

All three blades detached from the turbine at the offices of Aviva in Perth, Scotland.

Nobody was injured in the incident as local residents reported hearing “an almighty crack” in the early hours of Friday.

“The blade snapped off the wind turbine and there's a huge lump of ragged and twisted metal that fell meters away from the public path," one told The Daily Record newspaper.
Aviva installed the turbine – according to information online a 1MW DW61 machine with a 77-metre tip height from Dutch-based manufacturer EWT – 10 months ago.

Aviva said the blade failure appeared to be the result of “some type of engineering fault”.

“The area has been secured, and we are working with the supplier to establish the root cause of this incident, as well as on a plan to repair the turbine and restore it safely to operation,” the insurance giant added.

“As part of the repair and recovery operation, the wind turbine tower will be taken down in the near future, likely over this weekend, weather permitting. This will enable us to expedite our investigation in terms of what went wrong and start developing a plan to restore the turbine to full operation as quickly as possible.”

The installation of the turbine was part of a wider project to boost the Perth site’s renewable energy use that also included deployment of solar panels and battery storage.

The turbine was inaugurated by Scotland’s first minster, John Swinney.