Green energy
It doesn’t happen often, but in Feluy in the province of Hainaut, a wind turbine blade has folded and partly come loose. No injuries were reported, but the manufacturer is still in the dark about the cause of the defect.
The seven turbines of the wind farm on the industrial estate of Feluy near Seneffe in the province of Hainaut are at a standstill. On Thursday, a blade of a windmill broke there for an unknown reason, and debris ended up in the nearby fields. The Hainaut Center fire brigade arrived on the scene and the police closed the area.
“This is a rare incident that only caused material damage that was limited to the one blade of the wind turbine involved,” operator Elawan Energy said in a press release. “In any case, the top needs to be replaced. At this stage, investigations are underway, carried out by the manufacturer, to confirm that the incident is limited to a faulty part of a single wind turbine.”
The path to the wind farm is closed and the seven turbines are idle until the green light comes from the manufacturer to start up again. There is no immediate threat to local residents, fire chief Benoit Filippi said. “The manufacturer is conducting an investigation to determine the precise causes of the incident and to confirm whether it was limited to the turbine in question,” Seneffe mayor Bénédicte Poll said in La Nouvelle Gazette.
