Wind turbines collapse in Brazil

Two wind turbines have collapsed in less than two months in Brazil.

The facilities were produced by General Electric, a multinational group involved in many fields including renewable energy, oil and gas industry and healthcare.

Currently, Brazil produces 9% of its electrical power need by wind farms. General Electric has more than 3,000 wind turbines installed in the country with a total capacity of about 5.5 GW. 

The first facility, a 1.7MW turbine, collapsed at the Ventos de Sao Clemente wind farm, located in Brazilian Pernambuco state. According to a report, high winds (about 100km/h) forced a blade to detach from the turbine which was destabilized and gave way.

The incident was the first to occur in Brazil since the beginning of the country's occupation with wind energy (about 10 years ago), however, 3 more General Electric facilities located in the US had already collapsed in the previous 6 months. Those failures have raised questions about whether there is a pattern, however, General Electric stated that there is no such connection between them.

Nevertheless, a second General Electric wind turbine collapsed οn September 5, 2019. The incident occurred at Delta wind farm in Maranhao state and a worker was injured. Remarkably, according to RDS Energia, a consultant company in Brazil, those structures can resist forces from winds reaching up to 300 km/h. Rodrigo Nereu dos Santos, head of RDS Energia, stated that those failures may affect the reliability of General Electric.

General Electric is currently examining the incidents in order to find the causes of the failures. “We are working to contain and solve these problems as soon as possible to guarantee the safety and reliability of our equipment," General Electric officials from Brazil, stated.