Promoted as a way to improve efficiency and reduce wind turbine noise, an add-on device failed, causing a “catastrophic” incident. We have the details, including an engineering perspective.
October 0, 2024
On June 30, 2021, a wind turbine blade crashed to the ground in the Skyway 8 industrial wind power site, owned and operated by Capstone Infrastructure Corp. in Southgate Twp, Ontario.
A device called the “PowerCone” had been attached to the wind turbine as an experiment to determine its effect on turbine efficiency and noise reduction.
Roads were closed for several days nearby the affected wind turbine, as the municipality assessed the potential for danger to the public.
The experimental device was installed on March 19, 2021, and failed June 30, less than eight weeks after installation.
Looking into the failure
In the absence of any apparent public reports of an investigation into the incident, Wind Concerns Ontario filed a request with the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) in 2023 under the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act, to learn what the cause(s) of the failure were. We received the report in July, 2024.
Because of the technical nature of the documents provided, we consulted with a professional engineer who specializes in the field of rotating machinery, and who is a certified Professional Engineer or P.Eng.
The official report done by a consulting firm for the wind power operator, ministry, and insurer concluded that the event was due to “bolt failure” caused by “fatigue.”
A lot of questions remain unanswered, chief of which is why and how the PowerCone device could have experienced “fatigue” after such a short time in operation.
Our consulting engineer notes that it was not the PowerCone that failed, neither was it the wind turbine but rather, “it was the combination” of the two. He has other questions: was a stress analysis done? Was there a metallurgical analysis? If the bolts failed from “fatigue” how was that determined?
We have other questions too, including how appropriate was the almost $5-million price tag for this adventure. Who is reviewing these proposals at the National Research Council, and decided that this proposal was worth the money? Research money goes for projects that might be seen as more worthy and beneficial to the public, such as health research.
The goal was to make wind turbines work better, but who benefits from that? We note that, according to documents in the FOI tranche of emails and reports, the Government of Ontario had been interested in how useful the add-on device could be to improve efficiency of wind turbines.
Too many failures
Ontario’s Multi Municipal Energy Working Group also filed a Freedom of Information request and wrote a report on the nine catastrophic wind turbine failures to date in the province. The group said it was “deeply concerned about the associated implications. While the wind power industry reports that each [failure] is an isolated incident, there are now too many incidents for this response to be credible.”
The aims of the PowerCone —improve efficiency and reduce noise—acknowledge and confirm citizen concerns about Ontario’s wind power fleet. It doesn’t work, and it’s noisy.
Read our full report here:
contact@windconcernsontario.ca