Spiral smoke pattern from burning wind turbine - GIF

Spiral smoke pattern from burning wind turbine.

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Previously:

https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...071#post224557
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...594#post209270
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...206#post218291
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...545#post185759
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...679#post123655

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.

Looks like a second one is smoking in the far back.

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Originally Posted by Sockmonster

Looks like a second one is smoking in the far back.

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There's the backup :rimshot:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nova_robotics

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

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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by schuylergrace

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.

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It looks like the further one has a blade missing?

So I wonder how much the smoke emissions from these events negate the greenhouse gas savings.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sockmonster

So I wonder how much the smoke emissions from these events negate the greenhouse gas savings.

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It's pretty tiny in the grand scheme of things. These things actually make quite a bit of electricity. What kills it is if the turbine was early in its usable lifespan. If it's a young turbine then it might not have had a chance to make back the carbon it took to manufacture the thing. I've heard the payback can be as little as 6 months, but in all likelihood that's an overly optimistic number from a manufacturer, so take that with a big old grain of salt. These things look old as hell though so who knows?

Never seen a wind turbine turn that fast. Looks like a high wind situation and like nova_robotics said, catastrophic brake failure, especially given that two of them are burning in the same field. I think Hans Pearson is right, the one further back is missing a blade AND burning.