Study points to fire-related wind turbine failures

Together, they carried out a global assessment of the world’s wind farms, which contain an estimated 200,000 turbines. The team found that ten times more fires are happening than are being reported. Instead of an average of 11.7 fires each year, which is reported publicly, the researchers estimate that more than 117 separate fires are breaking out in turbines annually.

By comparison with other energy industries, fire accidents are much less frequent in wind turbines than other sectors such as oil and gas, which globally has thousands of fire related accidents per year.

However, fire accidents can have a considerable economic impact on the wind farm industry, the team said in a statement.

In their paper published in Fire Safety Science, they say that a typical 1.5MW onshore wind turbine would have a total initial cost of approximately €1.1m while a 3MW offshore turbine would cost around €4.9m.