So much for Endurance…
From Louise Gray at The Telegraph:
Wind turbine collapses in high wind
A controversial 115ft wind turbine has collapsed after being hit by heavy winds.
The £250,000 tower, which stood as tall as a ten storey building, was hit by gale force gusts of 50mph.
The structure then collapsed at a farm in Bradworth, Devon, leaving a “mangled wreck”.
Margaret Coles, Chairwoman of Bradworthy District Council, said hail storms and strong winds have hit the area and the turbine, installed just three years ago, simply could not withstand the wind.
“The bolts on the base could not withstand the wind and as we are a very windy part of the country they [the energy company] have egg on their face,” she said. “There are concerns about safety.”
The Bradworthy Parish Council, who opposed the turbine, expressed concern that there was “nothing exceptional” in the speed of the winds.
Installed by renewable energy company Dulas it was supposed to have a life expectancy of 25 years.
Full story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9837026/Wind-turbine-collapses-in-high-wind.html
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Of course, Ms. Gray calls a 50 mph wind a “high wind”, but that sort of wind isn’t an unusual event for the area. Besides, the specs for the Endurance E-3120 wind turbine say:
Given its, ahem, endurance, one wonders if the council will allow it to be reconstructed. I’m thinking no.
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London Bridge is falling down,falling down, falling down,
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.
The £250,000 tower……………………………..that’s almost $1/2 a million!
…..good grief
If it can’t survive winds well above 50 mph then it is not fit for purpose.
Some fine engineering there.
“The bolts on the base could not withstand the wind ”
It seems they used cheap China steel bolts made from cars after the cash for clunkers program in the usa? Hardened bolts would of never broke and seems someone made the wrong choice. Time for the tax payers to pay up for replacing all the bolts on the turbines across the UK now?
Installed by renewable energy company Dulas it was supposed to have a life expectancy of 25 years.
I do hope that this ‘life expectancy’ was contractual and included the amount of power to be generated per quarter for that 25 year life with a requirement to return the site to its pristine state should these values not be met. Unfortunately, I would expect not.
The UK landscape is going to be littered with broken and corroding wind mills. They are not ‘wind farms’ they are subsidy farms as soon as the subsidy stops or doesn’t support the profits the companies will declare bankruptcy and leave their broken subsidy farms in place as monuments to political stupidity. This is already the case in places in Hawaii and California.
From the DT comments.
This is not an isolated case, another wind turbine was destroyed near Bishop Auckland the same night.
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/10192330._/?ref=twtrec
From the DT comments.
CompareTheMarxist
6 minutes ago
This is not an isolated case, another wind turbine was destroyed near Bishop Auckland the same night.
http://www.thenorthernecho.co….
Oh, but what CAUSED those unexceptional winds???? Hmmmmm? Bleccck. (/sarc just in case)
Hmmm, yes. I t has certainly been windy here in Devon recently, but definitely nothing exceptional. People in rural Devon – and indeed our neighbours in the county of Cornwall – feel they have been targeted by developers wanting to erect turbines or to cover acres of green field land in solar panels. If this helps local people to fight the developments it is great,
While I think these are a silly technology, I would guess a faulty material/installation as the root cause of this failure. Even ‘hurricane’ force winds are well below the 116mph maximum rating, which is about the top range for Chinook winds I’ve experienced east of the Rockies.
My guess is the failure analysis will say the installation contractor used defective or below spec anchor bolts. The “specified” bolts would not have failed at 30% of maximum load.
Bill
REPLY: Unless of course the bolts are supplied by the company. – Anthony
A few years ago we had the wrong kind of soil… http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/wrong-kind-of-soil-leaves-network-rails-autumn-plan-in-turmoil-579979.html
Wrong kind of snow… http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/4434770/Snow-Britain-Wrong-kind-of-snow-strikes-again.html
Wrong kind of leaves… http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1338351/Parking-row-over-leaves-on-the-line.html
Now, the wrong kind of wind lol
Wind speed is greater the more distance to the ground you have. If it was 52 mph measured roughly 2m above the ground (a typical weather station), I bet the structure suffered some more. Anyway, it would still be far from the 116 mph that it is supposed to be able to stand.
I wonder how this event will be calculated into the return on investment profile of wind power.
Since it appears to be a complete loss, will it have a negative impact on the Energy Returned compared to the Energy Invested calculations?
I have a sneaking suspicion that any energy contribution the tower made will be added in on the plus side of ‘green energy’ but the loss (cost) will somehow be excluded.
“And in other news, wintering hen harriers breathe a sigh of relief as a controversial wind turbine tumbles…”
What is the cost per kilowatt generated over a ten year span, considering you have to replace these every three years?
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
The initial claim is that the bolts broke. Well, remind me to investigate, but internet search may prove fruitless. Fatigue is likely, but bolts above the fatigue limit should have been specified. Anyway, this is just another example of why windmills have been abandoned over and over for over three thousand years! They are good for immediate, localized needs, and for pumping water. Other than that, they are mostly a maintenance nightmare.
A 50KW turbine is pretty small potatoes. The typical turbines on land are rated at a max of 1.5 MW, or 1500 KW. And they cost a whole lot more than half a million dollars. Not counting their grid hookup costs.
Subsidy farm issues aside, wind turbine engineers are awesome and they have achieved incredible results. When the wind turbines finally shuffle away, we will still have the mighty engineers.
The thing is, none of these turbine designs has ever been properly crash-tested. I believe the endurance data they quote are obtained from scale models, and are really not data as such. What we see here is a test of a scale model.
Anyone know the depth of concrete required per 10metre height of turbine?
I read somewhere that it was laid to a depth half the height of the turbine, but how true that was I don’t know.
tonyb
I am very very pleased.
I know I shouldn’t laugh at others misfortune, but damn, it’s hard not to when these things get blown over!
The way it has gone at the base and the quote from the Council Chairwoman makes it seem like a failure on the mounting. A very, very poor show from the installation company.
Imagine the cost of decommissioning the ones out at sea.
Note the “cut-out wind speed” [the wind speed at which the protective device fitted to a wind turbine is activated to prevent mechanical damage to the machine] is given as 25 m/s (56 mph). That is higher than this structure’s oops! speed. The photo shows a circular base through which the concrete-anchored rods fit. It seems undamaged! Perhaps they just stood it up and failed to put any nuts on the threads. Okay, not. But there’s a big ‘fail’ waiting to be revealed.