A windmill on Buyea Road in the Fenner Wind Farm Project hit the ground Sunday morning. The collapsed equipment was discovered Dec. 27 by staff of Enel North America, the Andover, Mass., company that owns the project, while doing routine monitoring of their equipment.
Town of Fenner Supervisor Russell Cary said he doesn’t know whether the problem was discovered through the wind farm’s extensive computer monitoring system or by physical rounds, but he said nobody was injured in the collapse.
“This is an example of something that went right,” Cary said of the lack of casualties in the incident. “You can have all the experts in the world conduct all the studies in a lab, but the real learning happens in the field.”
Cary said planning precautions implemented prior to the construction of the wind farm in 2001 required certain setbacks and “collapse distances” to prevent damage to surrounding structures and town infrastructure in the event of an equipment failure.
“They will learn something from this,” Cary said. “And you want to learn as much as you can so there is no impact if something goes wrong.”
He said the windmill fell within the anticipated zone and about a half-mile from any roadway.
“Once it started to fall, gravity took over,” Cary said, explaining that fears of windmill debris scattering to the four winds and injuring property or people are unfounded. “There’s a big dent in the cornfield. That’s the extent of the damage.”
As of press time, Cary said Enel crews were en route to conduct a full investigation.
About the Fenner Wind Farm
The Fenner Windpower Project consists of 20 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 1.5 megawatts for a total installed capacity of 30 megawatts. Each wind turbine generator consists of a concrete foundation, a 213-foot-tall tubular steel tower, a 231-foot diameter, three-bladed rotor connected to a gearbox and generator, and an electrical control center to automatically operate the system.
The towers are 13.5 feet in diameter at the base and 8.5 feet at the top. The total height of each tower with blade extended is 328 feet; each blade is 113 feet long.
Each turbine weighs 380,000 pounds; the concrete foundation for each tower weighs more than 610,000 pounds. Access to the top of the tower is made by use of a vertical ladder located inside each tower.
The project is located in the town of Fenner, about 20 miles east of Syracuse in Madison County. The project encompasses about 2,000 acres of leased land running from the intersection of Mile Strip and Bellinger Roads in the North to the intersection of Buyea and East Roads in the south.
Two additional wind turbines and the electrical substation are located south of the intersection of Peterboro and Rouses roads, east of the main project site. Electricity produced by the windmills is transmitted to the National Grid power grid.
Construction began in June 2001 and was completed in November of that year.
The Fenner Wind Farm will be featured again on the History Channel’s Modern Marvels: Renewable Energy, replaying Jan. 24 at 9 p.m.
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