UK Wind Farm Accidents

Accident Statistics:

Email to PEDW regarding Twyn Hywel hearing:

Dear Sirs,

During yesterday’s hearing, we raised an objection to the applicant’s claim that turbine failures are rare.

We feel this may require some clarification:

These are Scotland Against Spin’s statistics for UK Wind Farms. They are assiduous in assuring all entries in the database are verified by press reporting and are acknowledged as having the most comprehensive database in the world.

The four main categories, for UK alone are:

Fire 476

Blade Failure 524

Ice Throw 47

Structural Failure 263

Total: 1310

Please note:

We have excluded ‘miscellaneous’ and ‘environmental’ categories where records of incidents can overlap with concerns giving rise to the possibility of an error in the numbers.

We have also exclude transport so that the figures reflect only operational wind turbines.

We can provide the verification sources for each of these in spreadsheet format on request.

Needless to say, given the remote nature of sites a lot more go unreported.

Kind regards

Tim Smith

Motvind UK CIC

We thank our friends at SCOTLAND AGAINST SPIN for kindly allowing us access to their database.