On Wednesday 8 September 2010, a blade piece detached from Vestas' V112-3.0 MW
prototype wind turbine located in Lem, Denmark. Vestas confirms that this
manually produced prototype blade - one of the first three blades manufactured
for the V112-3.0 MW prototype programme - according to general procedure has not
been subjected to Vestas' normal verification and reliability testing programme.
Based on this incident, in the future, Vestas will, however, ensure that
prototype quality meets higher demands than those applied for this prototype
production. Manually produced prototypes will, however, always involve a
significant higher risk of failure than by automated production processes.
Vestas' specialists and forensic experts have analysed the root cause and their
preliminary and unambiguous conclusion is that this is a stand-alone
manufacturing mistake caused by a human error during the manual production
process of the blade. Among other things, this is clearly seen from the way the
blade has broken. To make sure there is no doubt about the root cause, the
management of Vestas Technology R&D has decided that Vestas' internal
investigation will be followed up by a third party, external, expert
investigation. Furthermore, the result of this investigation will also be
communicated to the stock exchange as soon as it is concluded.
It is important to emphasise that when the V112-3.0 MW turbine is put into
serial production, this kind of failure will not be possible in Vestas'
automated manufacturing process. The V112-3.0 MW turbine, and consequently, the
blade was released for sale in the middle of August 2010 following a
comprehensive test programme validating the design inclusive of the blade
design. The design has thus been certified according to global industry
standards, and therefore Vestas' conclusion is that the failure cannot originate
from a design flaw.
On the basis of the conclusion of this investigation, Vestas will make no
changes to the plans for the turbine's release for sale, marketing and
production.
Contact details:
Vestas Technology R&D, Denmark
Finn Strøm Madsen,President
Telephone +45 9730 0000
Vestas Wind Systems A/S, Denmark
Peter W Kruse, Senior Vice President, Group Communications
Telephone +45 9730 0000
