35 Wind Towers Bound for Wales and Scotland

UK manufacturer of wind turbine towers Mabey Bridge is set to supply 35 Wind towers measuring in at between 65 and 70 metres in length to wind farms in Wales and Scotland.

Production of the turbines will begin in mid-February as part of Mabey Bridge’s new 24-hours-per-day work time at its new wind turbine tower manufacturing facility, a £38-million facility. Approximately 170 staff will be working on the project, including 45 new staff members and 50 that have been transferred in to meet demand from the company’s bridge-building operation.

Moving completed wind turbine tower section at Mabey Bridge Chepstow

Of the 35 towers, 14 will go to a Wales wind farm at the Pant-Y-Wal site near Rhondda in South Wales, marking the first time that turbine towers manufactured by a Welsh company will be installed in Wales.

“Quality and price were obviously key factors in awarding this contract to Mabey Bridge. However, also attractive was the fact that a key part of the wind turbines being installed at these sites will be manufactured in the UK,” said Bryan Grinham, managing director of Nordex UK.

“On site visits to Mabey Bridge we were not only impressed by the scale of the operation there but also the towers already manufactured, delivered and installed in the UK. We are excited about working with Mabey Bridge to deliver these towers on behalf of our clients Pennant Walters and Statkraft.”

Once installed—hopefully by June 2012—the turbines will generate up to 42 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 25,000 homes.

The remaining 21 towers are destined for installation in June of 2012 at the Baillie wind farm—owned by local windfarm developers and Statkraft—near Thurso on the north coast of Scotland. When installed, they will have a capacity of 52.5 megawatts and generate enough electricity to meet the energy needs of 35,000 homes.

“2011 was a challenging year for the wind turbine industry overall, with the latest available figures putting the number of new towers installed onshore in the UK last year at fewer than 25,” Mabey Bridge UK director Alex Smale said.

“Against this backdrop, the signing of a 35-tower deal with Nordex is a real boost for all the staff working at Mabey Bridge. We are very excited by the market currently and expect to make further announcements soon.”

Wind Turbine in Scotland Bursts Into Flames During Hurricane Force Winds

Powerful winds have been howling through the UK for the past couple days, and one $3 million wind turbine was an unexpected casualty of the storm. A 328-foot tall turbine in Ardrossan, North Ayrshire, Scotland burst into flames after high winds caused the blades to start turning too fast. Most turbines are built with mechanisms that shut their generators off if winds become too strong but it looks like this Ardrossan turbine lost control and blew through any such safety precautions.

“This was a small fire which lasted a short time,” a spokesman for RenewableUK, which represents the UK wind industry, told ReChargeNews. The wind turbine was part of a 30MW 15-turbine farm that was sold in 2010 to Infinis for $77.4 million. Infinis is the largest producer of landfill gas in the UK and it decided to break into the wind industry with the Ardrossan project, which bumped the company’s total wind capacity to 75MW. The Ardrossan wind farm supplies green energy to over 20,000 homes in Scotland.

The wind farm was built in 2005 and expanded in 2008 – there’s no word yet on whether the fiery turbine was part of the 2005 or 2008 construction. Though the fire didn’t cause major destruction and it seems to have been put out quite quickly, it does raise questions about the safety mechanisms built into turbines. Most turbines have mechanisms that turn off their generators in winds that reach upwards of 45 miles per hour and feather the blades inward so that the surface area facing the wind decreases.

Turbines are generally sold with the promise that they’ll withstand category 5 hurricanes but it looks like they can’t all walk the high wind walk. The silent, collapsable, Eco Whisper wind turbines from Renewable Energy Solutions Australia — they are built on hinges and can be lowered horizontally toward the ground to escape high winds — are looking more attractive after this recent blaze.