Investigators believe a pitch system fault caused the collapse of a Vestas V82 turbine at the 52.8MW Harvest 1 wind farm in Michigan.
A 1.65MW turbine was destroyed at the Exelon Wind Generation-owned project in February.
The pieces were sent to an independent lab for testing and analysis, said Exelon spokesperson Kristen Otterness.
“Based on testing, we’ve narrowed the focus to the hydraulic components of the pitch system, which controls how the blades move back and forth,” said Otterness.
Exelon is conducting a final analysis and expects to release the results in the next few weeks.
“We also will apply the learnings from this event across our entire fleet and share it with the industry,” said Otterness.
Harvest 1 was commissioned in 2008. The 32-turbine project is about 100 miles north of Detroit.
Image: the nearby Harvest II project which features Vestas V100-1.8MW turbines (Exelon)
Exelon blames turbine pitch fault
Developer probes Vestas V82 collapse at Harvest 1 project in Michigan
By EBS