Contrary to the popular myth, for wind power, it is not the windier the merrier. Three blades of a wind turbine were blown off in Taiwan on December 6.
Image by Lukas Bieri from Pixabay
There are 14 wind turbines installed by Taipower Company in Taichung, Taiwan. Due to the strong winds on December 6, three blades of Unit 11 were blown off.
Taipower personnel arrived at the scene to remove the base of the blades on December 9. There were no human casualties so far, according to the news report.
Mingcheng Lin, deputy director of Taipower's Renewable Energy Department, said that a sudden gust of wind blew off the three blades of Unit 11 at 9 AM on December 6. All three blades were severely damaged.
An investigation about the cause of blade damage will be launched. It will be reviewed and determined whether or not a fortified reinstallation would take place.
Each wind turbine is equipped with a wind speed detector. According to their record, when the blades were blown off, the instantaneous wind speed was at 30 meters per second, about level 12 (hurricane force) on the Beaufort Scale.
It was possible that the speed of the wind turbine blades, for reasons yet to be determined, could not be adjusted according to the wind speed. This led to the mechanical malfunction, and the blades were damaged as the result, Lin explained.
Before the result of a full investigation is out, it is, however, difficult to determine what caused the failure of the wind turbine blades
Strong winds destroying wind or solar farms is no news. However, the renewable energy industry has not been quick to address the issue. And wind resilience is an issue that is never going away before the renewable energy industry starts to take it seriously.
Read the original news report from United Daily News (in Traditional Chinese)
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