Wolfe Island wind turbine blade falls off

 Wind farms on Wolfe Island have been turned off after a blade from one of the turbines ripped off sometime Monday.

The mayor of Wolfe Island, Judy Greenwood-Speers, got the call Tuesday from TransAlta, the company that operates the farms.

“It seems that the turbine blade fell straight to the ground in front of the turbine, so that’s good and also unusual,” said Greenwood-Speers.

There are 86 turbines that have been operating since 2009. She said over the past 17 years, nothing like this has ever happened.

“This is very surprising to them (Transalta) too, in that, it’s an unusual occurrence,” added Greenwood-Speers.

INBOX168773f6fa556f6a759f3fd573282b521e9

On Monday a blade from a wind turbine on Wolfe Island broke off. TransAlta, the company who runs the farms, is currently investigating. 

She was taken to the location where the blade fell, which was between 4th and 5th Line Road, just south of Base Line Road, on Wolfe Island.

Due to the wide-open space where the turbine was built, no one was injured. There are no nearby buildings in the vicinity of the turbines for cautionary reasons.

“A turbine at TransAlta’s Wolfe Island wind facility experienced a blade failure during high wind conditions. The site was immediately taken offline and the area around the turbine secured,” TransAlta wrote to the Whig in a supplied statement.

During high winds, the turbines are actually locked in place so they don’t spin out of control.

The company is now looking into how this happened.

“TransAlta has activated its incident management process and an investigation is underway to determine the cause of the failure,” TransAlta confirmed. 

INBOX16877387e7813553425f89fbda364759a67

A close look at a wind turbine on Wolfe Island that lost one of it’s blades Monday. TransAlta is currently investigating. Supplied photo

At this point, the mayor said she’s not concerned but is curious as to how and why the blade broke off.

“To me it is a fluke in that when I see the report, if I find out that there’s something of concern, then I’ll get concerned,” said Greenwood-Speers, who added she’s more concerned about the ferry system.

She commended TransAlta for being so transparent when it came to communicating with the community about the failure.

“They’re doing everything right as far as I can see,” said Greenwood-Speers. “At this point in time, I’d have to give them an A+ for communication, not necessarily the same grade I would give our Ministry of Transportation.”

TransAlta said further updates would be provided as soon as more information becomes available.

Wolfe Island wind turbine blade falls off | The Kingston Whig Standard

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trump’s Executive Order Throws Caution to the Wind (and Solar)

  Enacted in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act (the “IRA”) expanded energy tax credits by increasing credit amounts, broadening eligibility beyond wind and solar, and allowing credits to be developed and sold, as outlined  here . The winds have now shifted . Two years later, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (the “OBBBA”) slows that momentum by  delivering a final blow to wind and solar , terminating the tech-neutral investment tax credit (“ITC”) and production tax credit (“PTC”) for projects that are not placed in service before 2028, with a safe harbor for projects that begin construction within 12 months of enactment. The OBBBA also  introduces sweeping “foreign entity of concern” limitations that could disqualify many projects from the credits entirely. The wind-down  doesn’t stop there . On July 7, Trump issued an  executive order  giving Treasury 45 days to issue new guidance on what it means to begin construction, dispelling any doubt about ...
Read more

The Green-Energy Bill Is Finally Coming Due

  Rahm Emanuel conflates “taxpayers” with “ratepayers” as he laments the federal government’s reductions of energy tax credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (“ Big Electric Bill? Thank Trump ,”   op-ed, Sept. 18). There’s plenty to debate about these incentives, but no one in or around government should pretend they’re free. The U.S. Treasury last year estimated  the two biggest energy-related credits, used primarily to subsidize wind and solar projects, would cost taxpayers $425 billion over the next decade. Congress slashed future taxpayer costs by phasing out these credits. The ratepayer cost and profile of future electricity generation will now change.  Instead of putting more charges on the national credit card , more of the cost of electricity generation will show up on monthly bills. This will prompt discussion about the state and federal policies that, years before the big, beautiful bill, caused electricity rates to begin climbing. Here’s hoping it ...
Read more

an example of the big green comment people are filling on NYPA draft plan

  It's so frustrating and NYPA's unwillingness to fully identify the projects is suspect, as well.  I spent significant time this morning trying to find information about a company called Forward Power which is supposedly sponsoring project E4, a 180 MW project in Charleston, but they have no web presence.  A little more digging and I found that they are a joint venture between Invenergy and another company associated with Clean Path.   This led me to the following links, which seems to point to NYPA attempting to revive Clean Path as a "Primary Transmission Project."  Forward Power was a rumored bidder on the project according to the 1st article.  On Thursday, the PSC denied the petition, but it seems a clear indication of NYPA's downstate advocacy in this regard.  Apologies if I am covering info that you already are aware of. https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2024/12/nypa-pitches-transmission-line-revival-00195956   (Sorry, it's be...
Read more