Wind turbines out of action at Murra Warra

A wind farm near Horsham has been forced to replace the bearings on turbines, despite it only being six years old.

Murra Warra wind farm has been forced to replace the bearings on turbines that are only six years old.

Minyip locals have reported about half of Squadron Energy’s Murra Warra wind turbines are out of action, after their bearings failed just six years after being switched on.

Squadron has confirmed the bearings on 32 of its 61 turbines at the Murra Warra One development are shot.

But replacing the German-manufactured bearings is no easy task, with each turbine having to be disassembled and the components carted to a specialist facility in Melbourne for repair.

A Squadron Energy spokeswoman said: “Work on a bearing refurbishment program on some of the wind turbines at Murra Warra 1 Wind Farm started recently and is expected to be completed next year.

“Wind turbines are operational for 30 years or longer. As with a car or any other large complex machine, there is ongoing maintenance and some parts may warrant refurbishment.

“The wind farm continues to generate power, with staged maintenance taking place to replace certain failed bearings, and a number of turbines have already returned to service.”

But just how much power is being generated remains unknown.

The Weekly Times understands workers at the site have reported just a handful of turbines have been repaired to date, with most still out of action.

Squadron’s woes follow breakages at Victoria’s largest wind farm, Golden Plains, when high winds blew pieces of serrated edging off the turbine blades and into neighbouring farm paddocks and roads, prompting a WorkSafe investigation.

Nationals Lowan MP and Opposition agriculture spokeswoman Emma Kealy said the recent failures highlighted the need to adopt the Liberal-Nationals Coalition policy of forcing renewable developers to put money aside for decommissioning of wind farms and other renewables on land they lease from farmers.

“This (Squadron’s outage) is an example of just why we need to ensure there are (decommissioning) bonds in place, so if there’s an early shutdown farmers aren’t left with the clean-up costs,” she said.