Turbine down; Collapse and oil spill shuts one of Europe’s largest and newest wind farms

Translate: FROM English | TO English

The collapsed turbine at Nysater.Photo: With permission from Birgitta Jansson via Facebook

An investigation is underway after a turbine collapse that closed one of Europe’s largest and newest onshore wind farms just weeks after it was inaugurated.

A turbine fell at the 475MW Nysäter project in northern Sweden around midday on Saturday, said a statement on the project’s website.

No one was injured but there was a suspected oil leak from the affected turbine’s gearbox and the entire wind farm is now closed, it added, urging the public to stay away.

“We suspect that oil from the gearbox may have leaked and the relevant authorities are informed,” said the statement.

“A crash team is on its way to the crashed turbine, and is expected to begin work on Monday 18 July. Until their investigation is completed, the entire wind farm will be closed.”

The array features 104 220-metre-high Nordex N149\u002F4.0-4.5MW turbines and ten Nordex N131\u002F3900 machines. The statement gave no further details of the turbine involved in the incident and Nordex has been contacted for comment.

Nysäter was commissioned in June by German utility RWE which built and will operate the project as a 20% minority shareholder. The balance of the project is owned by Switzerland’s Energy Infrastructure Partners.

RWE said in a statement sent to Recharge:”We can confirm that one wind turbine collapsed on Saturday at the Nysäter wind farm, about 400km north of Stockholm. No one was injured in the accident. The area is currently closed and the wind farm has been taken out of service for the time being as a precaution.

“The reason is currently being investigated. We expect first results from the root cause analysis in the next two weeks.”

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding

(via Stripe)

(via Paypal)

Share:

[ Short URL: https://wind-watch.org/news/?p=104293 ]

Tag: Accidents

« Later Post • News Watch Home • Earlier Post »