Odal Vindkraftverk will not resume operations this week as planned. The Norwegian wind farm’s 34 turbines, which are from Siemens Gamesa’s 4.X platform, are still shut down after a blade broke off in April, missing the restart deadline set by the owner in mid-May.

”Unfortunately, the investigations and assessments have taken longer than we expected and there are still no turbines in operation as of June 25. We do not have a concrete date for when the first turbines will be in operation, but we hope that it will happen during the summer,” the company behind Odal Vind writes in an update.

The wind farm has been plagued by blade problems from the beginning. Less than two months after Energy Minister Terje Aasland helped inaugurate Norway’s fifth largest wind farm last August, Odal Vind announced that one of the blades had to be replaced due to a production error.

At the same time, it was mentioned that some of the other blades would also be repaired for ”small cracks”. But this was ordinary maintenance, it was emphasized. The following month, however, it was announced that several turbines had to be stopped and blades taken down for repair while the entire wind farm was inspected. 

The next report came in March when it was announced that 13 turbines were out of service due to blade damage while two others were under repair. Less than a month later, however, things went completely wrong when one of the 22-ton blades broke off and forced the entire wind farm to stop.

It should have been repaired in time for at least 16 of the turbines to be operational before July, with normal operation by the end of this year. However, some relatively important components are still missing: Odal Vind states that a number of new blades are expected to be delivered over the coming weeks. 

Siemens Gamesa informs EnergiWatch that the investigation into the incident in April is still ongoing and that the turbine manufacturer has no further comments. New sales of the 4.X are still suspended, but Siemens Energy said in the spring that these are expected to resume in the fall.

Odal Vind is owned by a consortium consisting of Akershus Energi Vind, Cloudberry and KLP.

English edit: Catherine Brett