Nordex turbine blade breaks at giant new Acciona wind farm

A Nordex wind turbine blade has broken at a 923MW Acciona wind farm that the Spanish developer is building in Australia.

The incident occurred late last month at the MacIntyre wind farm in the state of Queensland, according to local media.

The MacIntyre wind farm features 162 Nordex N163/5.X turbines with a 5.7MW power rating.

"An exclusion zone around the affected turbine will remain in place until the visual inspections and investigation is complete."

"MacIntyre’s site team along with our turbine supplier Nordex are developing a method to remove the affected blade from the turbine and we will continue to undertake visual inspections and a thorough documentation review of all turbines as part of the investigation to discover the root cause of the problem."

Nordex was not immediately available for comment.

Spanish developer Acciona Energia announced in October that an initial 27 wind turbines had been connected to the grid at the project, with the remainder expected to power up over the coming year.

Acciona says the wind farm will be one of the largest in the southern hemisphere when completed. Ark Energy, an Australian subsidiary of Korea Zinc, owns a 30% stake in the project.

The energy produced will be supplied through power purchase agreements to Queensland’s publicly owned energy generator Stanwell Corporation and public electricity company CleanCo.

Acciona also has plans to develop a 1GW wind farm near the MacIntyre site featuring 176 wind turbines, with the Spanish developer planning to use Nordex machines for this project as well.

The completed 2GW complex will be able to supply enough power for 1.4 million homes annually, says Acciona.