Undamaged turbines set to go again

Hobart Mercury
Wednesday 8/9/2010 Page: 14

THE two undamaged wind turbines on the Marine Board building are expected to be spinning again by early next week. Two of the four turbines were still to be repaired after they failed in early August, causing $100,000 worth of damage. Eight clays after the failure Workplace Standards Tasmania ordered the two undamaged turbines to be shut down until it was satisfied they were safe.

Bruce Lipscombe, I Want Energy director of engineering, said his workers had been on the building rooftop yesterday doing some final structural tests before submitting reports to Workplace Standards. "We are hoping to have everything finalised by the end of this week or early next week", Mr Liscombe said. "We are just signing off on some metallurgy tests that are being done... to make sure all the welds and joins are fine. "They appear visually to be, but we are X-raying and ultrasounding them anyway just to make sure".

He said the reports had been conducted by independent companies. "We have been engaged to repair the turbines, but we engage other companies to give us independent reports", he said. Mr Liscombe said parts for the damaged turbines were still on the way from overseas. He said turbines for the ANZ Building would still be installed, as planned, at the end of this month.

Workplace Standards Tasmania general manager Roy Ormerod said he had been waiting on the results of the tests. "I have been a little surprised because I thought the two undamaged ones would be back up and running pretty quickly", he said. "But obviously they are making sure everything is all right and we are happy with that because we do not want a repeat of what happened last time".