Unless you have fire suppression systems installed inside your turbines, the damage is most likely going to be irreparable. Find some of the potential negative cost impacts of a turbine below:
Cost of Replacement
With irreparable damage due to a fire, you can either:
- replace the turbine completely
- write it off.
While a 10MW turbine is estimated to cost $8m, replacing a single turbine is expected to cost more as you do not benefit from the scale of economy. You will also have to account for the costs involved in dismantling the damaged turbine.
Downtime
Another cost of a fire event in your offshore wind farm is the revenue loss associated with the unavoidable downtime. If deemed necessary, your project might have to be shut down and taken off the grid for precautionary safety measures and for root-cause analysis. Following the results, further inspections may be needed for your entire project to ensure that it is safe to continue operations, resulting in more downtime.
Furthermore, should you end up not replacing the turbine, your farm will be running at a lower capacity. This results in the loss of revenue throughout the lease of your wind farm.
At an estimated €47.60 (~$56.30)/MwH, the loss of potential revenue due to downtime and lack of replacement will quickly accumulate.
Changes to your insurance policy
You will most likely also be facing changes when renewing your wind farm’s insurance policies if claims have been made. For example, you may be faced with higher premiums or higher deductibles due to the revised risk exposure.
This may have an industry-wide effect; as insurers gain more knowledge and data on how fires may come about, and this may result in more restrictions in relation to the cause. For example, if one particular turbine model has a higher chance of fire, other developers using this the same turbine could be faced with the same restrictions in coverage.
Regardless of the cause, a fire in a singular wind turbine will negatively impact your revenue, and result in additional costs that you may not be prepared to take up.
While these are some of the most obvious cost impacts that affect your bottom line, you should also consider how a safety incident like this would impact your company’s reputation.
Given this, installing fire detection and suppression systems inside your turbines may be will protect your assets from irreparable damage and at the same time, it shows your commitment in ensuring safe operations of your assets!
Click below to read more about various fire suppression systems that you could consider for your offshore wind project - or get in touch right now
