Residents living near wind farm fed up with constant banging noise from damaged blade

KAWARTHA LAKES-Residents living near the Sumac Ridge Wind Farm say a damaged blade isn’t the only thing that’s been left blowing in the wind. The are fed up with the dangling piece of metal hitting the turbine and making a loud banging noise for the past two weeks. They are calling on the owners to repair it immediately saying it’s causing headaches and keeping then up at night.

On April 20th one of the blades at the five wind turbine project on Wild Turkey Road near Pontypool, exploded.

Kawartha 411 was there today and recorded this video. This is what we heard on a 1.6 minute video clip and the winds were calm today.  Tomorrow they are calling for wind gusts of us to 60km an hour. Have a listen:

Operations Manager Jonathan Clifford told Kawartha 411 they are still investigating the cause of the blade collapse at the Sumac Ridge Wind Project.

“Senvion flew in specialists last week to investigate the site. Additional information needs to be obtained from the tower but staff have not been able to go up yet.  We will be removing the rest of the broken blade soon. I am waiting on a schedule from Senvion and we should have more details to release shortly.”

When pushed for a projected timeline for repairs this is what he said.

“I have been to site several times and will be there today so I have heard the noise that is being created and I completely understand the frustration. As I said, I’m waiting on Senvion to provide a schedule, they are aware of the noise and complaints.

Clifford went on to say

“I have been asked by others about rotating the blades so they don’t hit the tower. Unfortunately, we cannot rotate the hub because of balancing issues. Should the brake be released, the broken blade would rotate up uncontrollably, possibly causing additional damage to the other equipment. Senvion, the manufacturer and the company responsible for the maintenance hope to install a hydraulic device in the hub to allow a controlled rotation of the blade.  This also requires staff to access the tower which has not been cleared yet for safety reasons.”