RESOURCES

Turbine collapse or breakage is extremely rare, and utility-scale wind turbines are fitted with safety mechanisms to survive extreme weather conditions, such as high winds and severe storms. Turbine blade breakage does not pose a significant threat to humans.

The Department of Energy has noted that, although the risk of turbine blades becoming detached during operation “was a concern in the early years of the wind industry,” such failures “are virtually non-existent on today’s turbines due to better engineering and the use of sensors.”

Turning to all turbine blade failures, rather than just turbine blade detachment, a 2015 study found that wind turbine blades fail at a rate of approximately 0.54% per year globally. The Department of Energy has further reported that “catastrophic wind turbine failures . . . are considered rare events with fewer than 40 incidents identified in the modern turbine fleet of more than 40,000 turbines installed in the United States as of 2014.”