Nordex is investigating a blade breakage incident at the 28MW A44n Bedburg wind farm in Germany’s North Rhine Westphalia state.
The turbine manufacturer says that a rotor blade on a N149/5.X turbine broke and was discovered on the morning of 7 January, forcing the temporary closure of a nearby highway by Autobahn Gmbh “as a precaution”.
It added in a statement that no-one was hurt in the incident, and that the road closure “was lifted in the late afternoon of January 7, after Nordex rotated the nacelle by 180° and turned the damaged rotor blade away from the side facing the highway”, located roughly 270 metres away from the site.
The local fire department in Bedburg responded to the incident and said that the broken blade was hanging “by a silk thread” at a height of about 160 metres.
A team of experts from Nordex has begun investigating the cause of the incident in close collaboration with the site’s owner, RWE, Nordex said.
“However, at this time, no reliable statement can be made about the underlying cause. “The removal of the rotor blade is to be completed as soon as possible. Due to dependencies on weather conditions, no more precise time frame can be given at present.”
The A44n Bedburg wind farm is equipped with five N149 turbines and started operating in 2022.