Spiral smoke pattern from burning wind turbine - GIF

[nova_robotics]

I'd love to know what the typical failure mode is that causes this. High winds overcoming the brakes (probably this case)? Faulty variable pitch blade actuator? Bad bearings overheating and igniting the grease? Electrical fault? Something else? These things are large and expensive enough that they should have a beefy fire suppression system onboard. I've installed gensets in little 20 ft seacans and they had to have quite expensive FM200 fire suppression systems. You would think the prospect of losing a multi-million dollar piece of equipment would lead to investing in some robust backup systems.

[schuylergrace]

I'd love to know what the typical failure mode is that causes this.

Others I've seen like this were the result of lightning strikes. The fact that two of them are on fire would seem to bear that out as a possibility. Also, the wind appears to be blowing a pretty good clip, so there could be a storm involved. Maybe, a two-mode failure--lightning takes out some critical system, allowing the turbine to spin ungoverned. That could be why the closer one is spinning, but the farther one is not.

[Hans Pearson]

Others I've seen like this were the result of lightning strikes. The fact that two of them are on fire would seem to bear that out as a possibility. Also, the wind appears to be blowing a pretty good clip, so there could be a storm involved. Maybe, a two-mode failure--lightning takes out some critical system, allowing the turbine to spin ungoverned. That could be why the closer one is spinning, but the farther one is not.

It looks like the further one has a blade missing?