A growth-oriented renewable energy company that owns and operates 2GW of wind power is in the process of installing Firetrace’s fire suppression systems across their American fleet following a successful pilot program. After the recent incident, a pilot program was launched where Firetrace’s system prevented a minor component fire from spreading and completely destroying a turbine at one of its wind farms.
During the incident, a fire sparked inside the nacelle due to a mechanical error in the turbine. The spark could have easily have spread and destroyed the unit within 60 seconds. However, several months before, the windfarm owner opted for not only fire detection, which would not have helped in this instance but fire suppression technology that was able to put out a fire after it had started.
As a result of this proactive mitigation strategy, the installed Firetrace system detected and suppressed the fire before it caused irreparable damage to the unit. Without this technology in place, this single fire could have cost up to $7-8 million and caused months, potentially over a year, of lost revenue.
Because of the height of wind turbines and being located in remote locations, fire is a significant risk for wind turbine owners due to the difficulties of suppressing fires. Angela Krcmar, Global Sales Manager - Wind for Firetrace, noted: “90% of the time, a fire leads to a total loss of the wind turbine, or at least a level of downtime that results in the accumulation of substantial economic losses depending on the turbine size and location due to the high cost of replacement, lost revenue, and investigation.”
“We are delighted to partner with some of the leading owners and operators globally to offer 15,000+ wind turbines protection against fire risk and ultimately allow them to take advantage of technological progress to improve operations and safety. Our systems have a tangible impact on their bottom-line, as companies that use our products can expect reduced losses, better safety outcomes, and improved insurability.”
We are pleased to be installing our technology in 500MW of wind assets across four states for this major American wind farm owner/operator.
