Lightning at Wind Farms 'Could Start Forest Fires'
Aug 20 - Scotsman, The
DIRECT lightning strikes on wind farms could create power surges that damage the electricity network and start forest fires, according to campaigners against the proliferation of turbines in Scotland.
Campaigners have obtained a report from the National Lightning Safety
Institute (NLSI), which catalogues lightning problems experienced by United
States and European wind farms, The Scotsman has learned.
Coupled with Met Office data that shows the west coast of Scotland to have
the highest incidence of lightning strikes in the UK, the anti-wind-farm lobby
groups say an investigation is urgently needed to address their concerns.
The NLSI report lists a 1995 German study which estimated that 80 per cent of
insurance pay-outs for damage to wind turbines were caused by lightning strikes.
A European retrospective study that examined 11,605 "turbine years"
in Denmark and Germany revealed that lightning faults caused more loss in wind
turbine availability and production than any other fault.
Christine Metcalfe, who lives next to the proposed ScottishPower development
near Loch Avich in Argyll, said: "Our point in raising the issue is to
alert planners that this is surely one of the issues that must be considered for
potential power loss when they are looking at applications."
She added: "We need to know the possibility of such events causing a
heath fire in the middle of the night when no-one would spot it and galloping
down to our village without an alert."
However, Dr Ian Cotton, a lecturer at the University of Manchester Institute
of Science and Technology, who wrote his doctoral thesis on lightning protection
of wind turbines, maintains that the risk of fires being caused by lightning
strikes is remote.
He said: "My reply would be 'Don't be absurd'. To my mind if you took a
number of wind turbines versus a large spruce plantation, which is also quite
tall and large, then there is probably more risk of trees being hit by lightning
than the turbines themselves."
Robert Davies, a director of EA Technology, which used to be the
research-and-development arm of the electricity industry and is now a consultant
company to the power industry, operates a lightning- location system that can
predict the risk of strikes to wind farms. He said:
"Of course lightning has the potential to damage turbines because it
involves a lot of power, but the level of effect depends on a host of
variables."
Maf Smith, the chief operating officer for Scottish Renewables, the forum for
Scotland's renewable energy industry, said: "We have had wind turbines in
Scotland for 20 years now and would have noticed if the supposed concerns raised
were a problem.
"Lightning strikes are a rare occurrence but a fact of life for every
industry in Scotland. Wind turbines are designed to cope safely with any strikes
and we are not troubled by rabble rousing and misquoting reports to try and make
people think that there is a problem."