Walkaway wind farm resumes some production after turbine collapse

The Walkaway wind farm in Western Australia has resumed some production after more than one month off line following the shock collapse of one of its turbines in early June.

One of the wind turbines – number 43 turbine at the 54 turbine wind facility, also known as the Alinta wind farm – fell to the ground around 8.30am local time on June 8. It caused no other damage and no injuries, but it resulted in the facility being switched off while the cause is investigated.

Production at the 89MW facility, owned by Iberdola Australia, resumed on June 12, but only at a very small level, reaching a maximum output of around 6MW since that time.

It is understood that each turbine is being checked for any faults, and a review is also being carried out at other wind farms that are using the same model – a Vestas B82 1.65MW turbine that was installed in 2006.

The Emu Downs wind farm, also in the same region of Western Australia, is another using the same turbine model, but appears to be operating normally. The latest generation of wind turbines being installed by Vestas in Australia are more than three times bigger in terms of capacity.

RenewEconomy understands that a “root cause analysis” is still being worked on, including by an incident management committee led by Iberdrola Australia managing director and CEO Ross Rolfe, but has yet to finalise its report.

Another Iberdrola facility, the Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park in South Australia, which will become the country’s biggest wind and solar hybrid once all the 317MW of wind and solar capacity is installed, has also been offline for most of the past month.

Its operation was suspended on June 23 after severe oscillations caused “flickering” on the local grid, visible to many consumers by the reaction of their lighting.

PAREP was identified as the cause of the problem and production and the commissioning process of the 210MW wind component was halted. The 107MW solar component is not yet complete.

It has yet to resume production as Vestas, which is supplying 50 of its V150-4.2 MW turbines for the 210MW wind component of the project, transmission company ElectraNet and the Australian Energy Market Operator continue their investigations.