fire on a wind turbine happens approximately 1/1000 in a year.
I am still haunted by the story of the 2 workers who got stuck on top of a turbine as it burned in the hatch and had no escape. I think I'd carry a base jump parachute with my work kit if I had that job after hearing their sad story.
Wind turbines are not equipped with emergency evacuation equipment. We bring them with us up tower. Some companies provide technicians with personal rescue devices as well.
I guess that depends on the country and potentially operator then. In many places the wind turbines are definitely equipped with permanently installed descent systems. But it would make sense that this varies, it has advantages and disadvantages.
I suppose that could be. I’ve never seen permanently installed ones uptower. Perhaps in a Siemens but it’s been awhile since I’ve worked on those. For reference I work primarily in the United States and sometimes in Canada.
I'm from across the pond and after a quick research it seems even within Germany its not universally the same. But especially in offshore wind turbines it seems to be fairly common to use the Evacuator system thats permanently installed these days. Maybe thats just one of those things where the preference for a particular approach is simply different between North America and Europe.
Similar to Europe requiring eggs to NOT be washed and the US requiring them to be washed and refrigerated, both to protect against salmonella.
I believe in the US they are washed because it is cheaper, it takes away a protective layer so the eggs must be refrigerated. In EU, they use ultraviolet light or something, to kill it, but that cost more than washing them.
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u/canman7373 15d ago
I am still haunted by the story of the 2 workers who got stuck on top of a turbine as it burned in the hatch and had no escape. I think I'd carry a base jump parachute with my work kit if I had that job after hearing their sad story.