On 3rd July 2023, UK Column News aired the following segment:
Are wind turbines safe?
Do they provide value in relation to our energy needs?
Mike Robinson and David Scott discuss this on UK Column News.
In 2014, researchers at Imperial College London warned that, “Wind turbines may catch on fire ten times more often than is publicly reported, putting nearby properties at risk and casting doubt on their green credentials.” The following article published by The Telegraph reported on this study.
Study backed by Imperial College finds wind turbines prone to "catastrophic" fires but the true scale of the problem is unknown
By Emily Gosden • 17 July 2014 • 12:01am
A £2 million, 100 metre tall wind turbine catches fire in hurricane-force winds at Ardrossan, North Ayrshire, Scotland, in 2011. CREDIT: Photo: STUART MCMAHON
Wind turbines may catch on fire ten times more often than is publicly reported, putting nearby properties at risk and casting doubt on their green credentials, researchers have warned.
The renewable energy industry keeps no record of the number of turbine fires, meaning the true extent of the problem is unknown, a study backed by Imperial College London finds on Thursday.
An average of 11.7 such fires are reported globally each year, by media, campaign groups and other publicly-available sources, but this is likely to represent just the “tip of the iceberg”.
There could in fact be 117 turbine fires each year, it argues, based on analysis showing just 10pc of all wind farm accidents are typically reported.
Fires tend to be “catastrophic”, leading to turbines worth more than £2 million each being written off, because the blazes occur so high up that they are almost impossible to put out, it warns.
Turbines are prone to catching on fire because their design puts highly flammable materials such as hydraulic oil and plastic in close proximity to machinery and electrical wires, which can ignite a fire if they overheat or are faulty.
“Lots of oxygen, in the form of high winds, can quickly fan a fire inside a turbine,” it says. “Once ignited, the chances of fighting the blaze are slim due to the height of the wind turbine and the remote locations they are often in.”
It warns: “Under high wind conditions, burning debris from the turbine may fall on nearby vegetation and start forest fires or cause serious damage to property.”
The main causes of fires are lightning strikes, electrical malfunction, mechanical failure, and errors with maintenance, it finds.
The academics used data compiled by the Caithness Windfarm Information Forum (CWIF), an anti-wind lobby group, which records 1,328 accidents involving wind farms globally between 1995 and 2012. Of these, 200 – 15 per cent - involved turbines catching on fire, implying 11.7 fires per year.
But the report, published in the journal Fire Safety Science, also back CWIF’s view that the true number is far higher.
It points out that the wind industry body, Renewable UK, has admitted there were 1,500 wind farm accidents and incidents in the UK alone between 2006 and 2010 - while just 142 individual accidents in the UK were documented in CWIF’s database over the same period.
This implies that less than 10pc of incidents are publicly reported.
Dr Guillermo Rein, of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial, said: “Fires are a problem for the industry, impacting on energy production, economic output and emitting toxic fumes. This could cast a shadow over the industry's green credentials. Worryingly our report shows that fire may be a bigger problem than what is currently reported.”
He told the Telegraph he believed it was “the responsibility of the industry” to keep a proper database and believed the industry itself had been “surprised by the magnitude of the problem”.
UK cases highlighted in the report include a 100-metre tall turbine that caught fire during hurricane-force winds at Ardrossan in North Ayrshire in December 2011, reportedly due to a lightning strike. The wind turbine was completely burnt out and debris scattered over large distances due to the strong wind.
In 2005, a turbine at the Nissan factory in Sunderland was engulfed in fire before falling onto a nearby A-road, causing traffic disruption. The blaze was believed to be caused by a loose bolt jamming a mechanism, causing it to overheat.
Dr John Constable, director of Renewable Energy Foundation, which has published research showing that wind turbine performance declines sharply with age, said: “This new study on wind turbine fire hazards is an important reminder that there are hidden operation and maintenance costs affecting the economic lifetime of what is after all very expensive equipment. Just because the wind is free doesn’t mean that it is a cheap way of generating electricity.”
A spokesman for Renewable UK said it did “not have numbers of fires as in many cases these do not need to be formally reported”.
Renewable UK’s director of health and safety, Chris Streatfeild, said: “The wind industry welcomes any research that will help reduce maintenance times and improve safety standards. However, the industry would probably challenge a number of the assumptions that are presented in the research, which include the questionable reliability of the data sources referenced and perhaps more importantly a failure to understand the safety and integrity standards for fire safety that are in effect standard practice in any large wind turbine.”
He said: “Fire is a very important issue for the industry in terms worker and public safety as well in reducing costs through minimising any operational down time. However the operational practices and design standards are such that the actual safety risks associated fire are extremely low. No member of the public has ever been injured by a wind turbine in the UK.”
Fire Trace International published a brief statistical analysis outlining The Wind Turbine Fire Problem, By the Numbers which concluded that “wind turbine fires account for 10-30% of all catastrophic wind turbine accident.”
Nacelle fires lead to total loss or significant damage in 90% of all cases
When a fire does occur, the typical action is to wait for it to burn out. Without suppressing the fire, significant structural damage and total loss result in nearly all cases (90%).
In the embedded video above, UK Column’s Mike Robinson referenced the following report.
As more and more wind turbines are being built, dealing with the possibility of a turbine fire should be an important step for the wind-farm owner-operator.
The wind industry is undergoing a period of unprecedented growth as part of the nation’s efforts to fully decarbonize the U.S. energy system by 2035. Tens of thousands of wind turbines are expected to be installed over the next few years — and with this boost in numbers comes both an increase in expected frequency and greater public scrutiny over wind turbine fires.
Fire risk and wind turbines
Wind-turbine fires are relatively rare. While the exact statistics cannot be determined from publicly available data, the number of wind turbines estimated to catch fire per year varies between 1-in-2,000 to 1-in-15,000. However, as more turbines are installed and existing assets age, the frequency of wind-turbine fires is likely to increase.
While steps already are being taken to “design out” as much fire risk as possible for new turbines, older turbines are likely to retain features that could put the asset at risk.
While the exact statistics cannot be determined from publicly available data, the number of wind turbines estimated to catch fire per year varies between 1-in-2,000 to 1-in-15,000. (Courtesy: Shutterstock)
Additionally, while newer turbines have features such as lightning protection systems being installed during production, many high-risk features cannot be removed from the design without seriously affecting generation. For example, convertor and capacitor cabinets and transformers are two of the most common points of ignition for a wind turbine, as an electrical failure can result in the production of sparks and heat. However, these parts are vital for the turbine to convert wind energy into electricity.
As fire risk cannot be completely designed out, it stands to reason that wind-farm owner-operators should act to prevent their assets from catching fire once operational — or face serious consequences.
The cost of a wind-turbine fire
A wind-turbine fire can cost upwards of $8 million, according to insurance experts quoted in Firetrace’s recent report, “Reducing Fire Risk.” As most wind-turbine towers exceed 250 feet, they are often out-of-range for ground-based firefighting. Sending a team up to fight the fire presents a significant health and safety risk. Therefore, if no fire suppression system is in place, it will be left to burn out, irreparably damaging the turbine.
While insurance frequently covers fire damage, the cost of managing increasingly large claims is pushing the market into a “hard” state, wherein premiums are raised and policies become much stricter. Acting to reduce fire risk could enable insurers to offer more favorable policies without taking on excess risk — reducing overall costs for wind-farm owner-operators.
Fire risk is not only a concern for the wind farm’s balance sheet. A wind-turbine fire can spread to the surrounding environment, sparking wildfires and potentially spreading into nearby communities. As such, stakeholders at the government and community level are likely to push for regulatory changes to ensure any wind-turbine fires are suppressed before the flames can spread beyond the asset.
Fire suppression systems can protect turbines by detecting and extinguishing fires. (Courtesy: Firetrace)
What are the regulations for fire prevention, detection, and suppression?
Currently, all power plants across the U.S. must comply with National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards in order to ensure their operations are sufficiently safe. Coal, gas, and nuclear are all regulated to ensure sufficient fire detection and suppression systems are installed in order to guarantee the safety of on-site personnel.
However, wind is not regulated to the same degree. In part, this is due to the relative “newness” of wind compared to other power-generation types. Coal- and gas-run generators have been used to produce electricity for centuries with nuclear in widescale use across the United States since the 1950s.
The wind industry also has a much safer record than coal, gas, or nuclear, which all have had historical fire incidents with multiple fatalities that prompted swift regulation. As such, while NFPA 850, the code for fire safety in power generation, does provide a standard for wind-turbine fire safety, fire detection and suppression systems are only recommended and not required.
However, a growing number of both local and state governments in the U.S. are acknowledging that fire suppression in wind is a necessary step to safeguard wind projects and the surrounding environment and property in the event of a fire.
Fire suppression systems can be the difference between a day of downtime and a year of downtime. (Courtesy: Firetrace)
In New Hampshire, for example, a legal dispute was sparked between the fire marshal and a leading utility over whether a wind farm followed the state’s fire code. This dispute was resolved once the utility retrofitted fire suppression systems to the project.
Outside the U.S., a number of countries and regions are starting to mandate fire suppression for new projects. For example, German standards from the Vertrauen durch Sicherheit (VdS) and DNV GL both include fire protection and suppression in their renewables project certification guidelines.
In Canada’s Ontario province, fire suppression is not only mandated for installation in new energy projects but is also required to be retrofitted to existing sites.
It is only a matter of time before a similar level of scrutiny over fire protection is rolled out on a national scale in the U.S. The wind industry must ensure it is proactive in ensuring it is following best practice for preventing and suppressing fire.
Proactively managing fire risk doesn’t just enable owner-operators to prepare for upcoming regulations — it also can help maintain positive relations with local stakeholders and surrounding communities. By taking steps to prevent and suppress fires, owner-operators can avert damage to not only individual assets, but the wider industry’s reputation for safety and environmental protection.”
As I have mentioned in other posts, Bute Energy has designs to desecrate and destroy upland moors in Wales with some 22 “energy parks” including for example 36 x 220m (721.8ft) tall industrial turbines atop the ancient domed hills of the Radnor Forest which is replete with peat. The following presents evidence from archived historic records of fire engulfing the Radnor Forest in the past.
“A person by accident set fire to Radnor Forest owing to the dryness of the season it burnt for 30 miles in circumference destroying thousands of sheep and many cottages. The Earl of Oxford and Mr Lewis [Harpton Court] were the main sufferers”. [British History by John Wade].
There was also a long notice about this in the Annual Register of 1800 under the headlines Ludlow Aug 19th in which it was stated that the fire was caused by the owner of a sheep walk setting fire to the heath before digging for ‘pitmar’ – coal or peat possibly pit or peat mawn, a term that is found on the Forest regarding Common rights ?
The fire seems to have spread to a great extent when we read that “ on the side of the vale adjoining Sir W Wynne’s estate it was supposed to extend from 8 to 10 miles on the opposite side to 4 miles” The report adds that the fire was seen from Ludlow riding in columns to an immense height, but it was principally confined to the hills, the property of the Earl of Oxford, Mr Lewis and Mr Lewin.
After raging for 5 weeks it was at length extinguished by a heavy fall of rain.
1800 was a year in which there was a severe drought which caused many fires everywhere.
On 27 June 2018, a massive moorland fire rapidly spread across 3.7miles (6km) of Saddleworth Moore near Carrbrook, Stalybridge in Greater Manchester.
One resident described seeing "ash falling like rain" and another said it "looked like the apocalypse.”
Dave Keelan, director of emergency response at Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, said 70 of its firefighters were tackling the blaze.
Mr Keelan said there were four different areas of fire embedded within peat, which is "extremely difficult" for crews to extinguish. (Source: BBC) [Bold mine.]
The following video published by West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue in April 2020 illustrates the incredible risk and damage wrought upon moorlands as a result of fire, whatever the cause may be.
How exactly are wind developers like novice Bute Energy going to “fire proof” “energy parks” with 36 x 220m tall industrial turbines spiked into upland peat moors along with BESS storage banks, in rural Wales?
A very fine critical eye must be cast upon the potential fire risks of industrial wind turbines in addition to all of the other myriad environmental issues involved with their construction and operation.
