just ouch!

[Moxi]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/s ... 0f9e&ei=52

Perhaps EDF need to review their wind loadings and also it might be circumspect to follow up installation with onsite quality checks to make sure things are torqued up ? I cannot see why they should have suffered so many mount failures otherwise ?

The wind turbine is anyone's guess, I don't recall seeing a failure of this type before?

Moxi

[dan_b]

Ouch indeed

[nowty]

Thats what insurance is for.

[Moxi]

I thought insurance used an ACT of God to wriggle out of stuff like that

Moxi

[dan_b]

Reminds me of the Monty Python motor insurance sketch

[Stinsy]

I don't think we should get too upset about this.

Everything has a design load capacity, and this comes with a tradeoff. Sure you can design the system to sustain more load but that means deeper foundations and more robustness throughout. It is possible that it wasn't economically viable to design the system to survive the loadings experienced in the recent storm.

Perhaps the system was had designed-in weak points so that it would shed the solar panels after a given wind load is exceeded. This would mean that the foundations and mounts are spared damage. Replacement panels are super-cheap, the main costs are: the labour to replace the panels: and the downtime (which is small given storms are likely in winter). And don't forget that this panel replacement cost will be mitigated in-art by the new panels being more efficient than those they replace.

[Moxi]

Not sure really, they will have seen high 80’s winds which doesn’t seem like a lot to account for in the design on a large solar farm.

Time will tell if they report further on the failure.

Moxi

[Sunrisemike]

Interestingly, slightly related, a large solar installation near Yarmouth (IOW) has suffered a major degradation of it's panels. I was talking with the farmer yesterday and he said that although they were past the guarantee date, the Chinese company is replacing them as it would
be bad publicity for them.

[Moxi]

Maybe its just solar farms on islands then ? Thats a grand gesture by the Chinese company Up here there is some heated debate as to the actual cause but someone had suggested that the wind loading parameter was set at 69mph which if true indicates degree of ignorance/ negligence as regionally we get lots of gusts in excess of that figure on a regular yearly basis. Other have suggested that some of the clamping detail may be suspect - suffice toy say there's lots of ideas going around but nothing yet from the owners or the contractor.

I heard that the wind turbine failed because the shaft sheared.

Moxi

[nowty]

News in today that almost 1% of the panels currently installed in Ripple Derril Water have also been damaged.

https://community.rippleenergy.com/proj ... wsH4EYCCr4