Evoco issues 'brake' alert on wind turbines after series of failures

Evoco said it had identified a fault with the wind turbines, which despite an order to be braked, had still caused three machines to be destroyed in recent high winds.

An urgent investigation has now been launched to discover why some customers' turbines were still spinning in gales despite the brakes being applied.

And Evoco advises owners to keep their turbines stationary until its team of engineers can perform modifications. The company promises to compensate all of its customers for any loss of income.

The alert was triggered after huge turbine blades flew off three structures including one on the aptly-named Windmill Lane in Huddersfield, West Yorks.

Some residents in the Hepworth and Upper Cumberworth areas of the town say they are concerned with the situation, and one warned "someone could have been killed", after one of the blades was flung across a road.

In a statement, the Brighouse-based company, today said: "Evoco Energy, manufacturers of small scale wind turbines, confirm that we have recently experienced a series of turbine faults in a localised area of rural West Yorkshire area during record-breaking high winds. No one was hurt in the incidents, which are being investigated thoroughly. Health and Safety issues are of primary importance to us, and we work to rigorous standards to maintain our excellent record.

"Due to the forecasts of exceptionally strong winds, and following a previous recent problem with a rotational bearing, we had asked all of our customers to temporarily apply the brakes to their turbines to prevent serious damage while we implemented measures to address the problem.

"Although a brake request had been issued, three incidents occurred during winds of up to 111 miles per hour. In each case, a turbine lost blades, due to the bearing issue for which we had instructed the turbines to be shut down. In each case the blades landed within the boundary of the turbine owner's property, although it appears that in one case, the hurricane force winds subsequently blew blades onto neighbouring property on the opposite side of a minor rural road.

"We are now investigating why some of our customers' turbines were spinning in high winds, despite the brakes being applied.

"Evoco turbines have recently weathered 3 lots of hurricane force winds, in which the overwhelming majority our turbines have operated without any problems. Where we have experienced isolated issues, we have dealt with these by increasing the safety margins in our design, and we expect our final modifications, which we have already begun to deploy to all our turbines, to reduce the failure rate to zero. In the meantime, as a responsible operator, we have taken the precaution of keeping our turbine fleet on brake until the modifications are performed. We are compensating our customers for any loss of income."

The Evoco website claims the 10kw turbine has been "specifically designed to reliably deliver high generation performance in harsh wind conditions".

The windmill in Hepworth was ripped apart in the gale force winds. The blades on the 12 metre mast are over two metres long and one flew across a road.

Frances Barnes, who has 10 acres of grazing land for horses close to the Hepworth turbine, said: "It is worrying.

"People objected to the plans when they first went in – not because it is a windmill but because it is so close to a busy road.

"It is frightening to think what may have happened had one of the blades flown into the road and hit a car, or indeed if the wind turbine had come down."

The Evoco failure will add to industry concern following the collapse last year of Proven Energy after a design fault was found in one of its mid-sized wind turbines.

Proven was eventually bought out of administration by Kingspan Renewables.