US Wind Owner Installs Fire Suppression Tech
By Renews.biz
An unnamed US wind farm owner/operator has installed fire suppression technology across 500MW of turbines, according to provider Firetrace.
The company’s fire suppression systems have been installed in turbines across four states.
The order follows a recent incident where Firetrace’s system prevented a minor component fire from spreading and “completely destroying” a turbine, the company said.
In the incident, a fire sparked inside the nacelle due to mechanical error in the turbine that could have spread and destroyed the unit within 60 seconds, Firetrace said.
Firetrace said months before the turbine owner opted for fire suppression technology, in addition to detection, which was able to put out a fire.
“Without this technology in place, this single fire could have cost $7-8m and caused months, potentially over a year, of lost revenue”, said Firetrace.
The company said fire is a “major risk for wind turbine owners”, due to the difficulties of suppressing fires at the height of wind turbines and in the remote locations these assets are placed.
Firetrace global sales manager for wind Angela Krcmar said: “90% of the time, a fire leads to a total loss of the wind turbine, or at least a level of downtime that results in the accumulation of substantial economic losses – on average, costing upwards of $7-8m depending on the turbine size and location due to the high cost of replacement, lost revenue and investigation.”