With work soon to resume on the Prairie Breeze Wind Energy farm, The Elgin Review has learned that a number of blades will have to be replaced on wind turbine towers already erected.
Statements from Invenergy (owner of the wind energy farm) and General Electric (maker of the blades) on Friday indicate the completion of the energy farm could be pushed back due to having to change out a significant number of blades.
“Due to a blade manufacturing defect, and following extensive consultation, GE (General Electric) is replacing a limited number of the turbine blades that will be utilized on turbines at the Prairie Breeze Wind Energy Center,” said Alissa Krinsky, communications director for Invenergy, based out of Chicago. “We have confidence in GE’s assessment and in the reliability of the replacement blades, and appreciate the patience of our project land owners and others in the community, as the blades are delivered to the project site.”
Katelyn Buress, speaking on behalf of General Electric, said “GE has identified a discrete set of blades that have been impacted by an anomaly in the manufacturing process. In order to ensure the reliability of our wind turbines, we are working with Invenergy to replace blades from the Prairie Breeze wind farm that were a part of this subset.
“Blades that are not impacted are safe to operate … The quality and reliability of GE turbines is of utmost importance to us and we are proud of our quality track record.”
At the end of November, in a press release updating the status of the wind farm construction, no mention was made of any wind turbine blades needing to be replaced.
At that time, it appeared that the last large deliveries of turbine blades was to be completed in several weeks.
Completion of the wind farm has been targeted for the first quarter of 2014.
For the complete story, see the print edition of The Elgin Review
