The Netherlands' offshore wind farm, Borssele 1+2, is for the moment down one turbine. A nacelle malfunction resulted in one of the facility's 94 units catching fire, which has since been extinguished and the impacted machine taken down, Ørsted informs in a statement.

"The damaged turbine is dismantled, and Ørsted is assessing which parts of the turbine can be reused. The other 93 turbines of Borssele 1 & 2 show no abnormalities," the utility writes and notes that the offshore wind farm in still operational with the exception of the one decoupled machine and its two nearest neighbors.

The statement doesn't reveal when – or where in the nacelle – the fire started. Ørsted informs that it has no further comment beyond saying the utility and the turbine's manufacturer, Siemens Gamesa, are working together to ascertain the cause of the incident.

This is the first time a fire is reported for one of the OEM's model SG 8.0-167 DD offshore units. However, the fire has occurred shortly after Borssele 1+2 was inaugurated. Even though the Dutch facility in fact entered operation last year, but the official ceremony was postponed in early September due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Another incident at Vattenfall farm

The Borssele fire is not the only offshore wind farm involved in a recent accident. During a maintenance task at Vattenfall's British Ormonde wind farm, Van Oord's service vessel MPI Adventure dropped a rotor fitted with blades last Monday during a lifting job.

In the fall, one of the blades weighing 126 tonnes from a Senvion offshore wind turbine hit the ship and broke in half and sent fractured fiberglass pieces into the sea, with some of the material having since washed ashore on the UK coast.

No human injuries took place at either incident, both power companies inform.

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