Watchdog to investigate turbine collapse – New Civil Engineer

12 January, 2015 | By Greg Pitcher
Northern Ireland’s safety watchdog has announced a probe into this month’s wind turbine collapse in County Tyrone.
Health and Safety Executive Northern Ireland said it would investigate the incident that occurred at Screggagh Windfarm on 2 January.
Wind energy is at the forefront of UK attempts to meet renewables targets, and has been blighted by scrapped projects in recent months.
The latest probe comes on top of an investigation being carried out by the wind farm itself as well as safety checks being undertaken at the site by turbine supplier Nordex UK.
Meanwhile a Tory MP has urged planning authorities to remain vigilant about the safety of wind energy infrastructure.
Trade body RenewableUK last week pledged that any lessons picked up from the investigations by Nordex UK and Screggagh Windfarm would be quickly passed on to the rest of the industry.
RenewableUK director of health and safety Chris Streatfeild said: “A thorough investigation is underway into what happened in this extremely rare incident.
“The wind industry takes health and safety issues very seriously, and the lessons learned from this will be implemented as swiftly as possible.”
Screggagh Windfarm director Doreen Walker said that the site’s health and safety alert process “worked well” following the turbine collapse. Emergency services attended within minutes of the incident, she said, and there were no injuries.
“All of the debris from the collapsed wind turbine was contained within the windfarm site. No debris went on to the public road or neighbouring land holdings,” she added.