A turbine going up in flames, its blades spinning through clouds of smoke — this image is used by anti-wind campaigners for a reason. Fires still attract major media attention and give local stakeholders pause when considering allowing a wind farm to be built on their land, near businesses and communities.

So far, the wind industry has shied away from openly discussing fire to avoid bringing attention to these low-frequency, high-cost events, and has for the most part convinced itself that the reputational risk of open discussions outweighs the potential benefits of transparency.

However, a lack of transparency prevents the wind industry from proactively improving standards for safer wind operations. It also allows detractors to set the narrative when it comes to wind turbine fires.

Anecdotal evidence from experts in fire risk and insurance would suggest that wind turbine fires are rare and have decreased over the past decade as a result of improved turbine designs and the industry’s commitment to operational best practice for fire safety. However, without the numbers to back these claims up, fascination around catastrophic turbine fires will continue to dominate the narrative.

While some clear risk factors can be identified, such as the age and accessibility of a turbine and the level of training for technicians on-site, there is little data available to fully calculate the cost-benefit of different approaches to manage these risks. While the latest available data from insurance firms like GCube would indicate that the average claim for a wind turbine in 2015 cost $4.5m, this figure is likely to have grown alongside the size of turbines in recent years.

Transparency around fire incidents can enable owners and operators to update best practice based on specific data, and ultimately drive down the number of costly fire incidents per year.

With the rapid growth of onshore wind in the US over the past year, and ambitions for over 25GW of offshore wind installed over the next decade, the industry cannot afford the hit to balance sheets or reputation from a high-profile fire — and the risk is only growing with the changing climate.

The climate along the west coast of the US has become hotter and drier over the past decade, forming the perfect conditions for electrical fires to spark and grow into wildfires. If a wind turbine were to cause a wildfire, the wind farm owner and operator would likely face bankruptcy from the litigation and liability costs. Beyond financial costs, a guilty verdict can follow owners and operators to the rest of their projects, with additional pressure from local authorities to prove that their wind farms will not spark another fire.

Reputational damage from a turbine-sparked wildfire could become national talking points and affect the entire industry, resulting in the loss of public trust in wind power and dealing a heavy blow to the industry’s growth.

The oil and gas industry faced the consequences of a similar opacity around health and safety in the 1990s, following a number of high-profile disasters such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In addition to the erosion of public trust, new regulations necessitating transparency around safety measures emerged to safeguard employees and prevent environmental damage. If the wind industry does not proactively manage fire risk, just one disaster could result in similar scrutiny from regulators and make transparency around fire incidents a matter of legal compliance.

Opening up around fire risk is therefore necessary for the wind industry to continue its exponential growth. An industry record of managing fire risk over the decades can help keep local authorities and communities behind new projects. Similarly, collaboration and communication on fire prevention measures, from fire detection and suppression systems to rigorous fire safety training for technicians, are essential for maintaining this trust in the coming years.

Angela Krcmar is global sales director for the wind-power industry at US-based fire-suppression systems company Firetrace.

Wind

‘It's time for the wind-power industry to openly discuss turbine fires'