Animal short circuit turns wind farm into a snail

Out with the mouse: A rodent has successfully taken on a wind farm, but paid for it with its life. The bite into a substation cable continues to paralyze parts of the wind farm.

Five in one go: a small rodent has completely disabled the quintet of turbines at a wind farm in South Westphalia. The tiny creature managed to do this by biting into a substation cable. It triggered a short circuit that is still affecting the "Rothaarwind 1" wind farm in Hilchenbach to this day.

While the wind farm in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district has a total downtime of a few weeks following the incident on 10 January, the consequences for the rodent are more dramatic. It bit itself to death. According to network operator Westnetz, the mortal remains on the cable did not reveal exactly whether the animal was a mouse.

Overall, Westnetz speaks of an unusual incident. It was also the first experience of this kind for park operator "Rothaarwind Planungs- und Geschäftsführungs GmbH", as Managing Director Günter Pulte explained when asked by this editorial team. Rodents usually rarely have access to the premises of transformer substations and tend to sneak through the doors by chance.

Park operator expects more than 100,000 euros in damage

In this case, the small bite in mid-January caused extensive damage. Günter Pulte estimates the loss of revenue and repair costs at over 100,000 euros. According to Pulte, three of the five turbines, which each have an output of 2 MW and are located in a wooded area, were still not connected to the grid on February 2.

According to the operator, this is due to consequential damage caused by the short circuit. Voltage fluctuations were presumably responsible for the electronic components for controlling the blade angle adjustment becoming unusable. However, the defect should be rectified by the end of the first week of February.

The question of who will pay for the damage needs to be clarified. The park operator says it is in talks with Westnetz to find a solution. The normal way would be to have the damage compensated by the grid operator.

In an interview with this editorial team, a Westnetz spokesperson explained that they now want to answer the liability questions together with Rothaarwind. This is an individual case in which responsibility must be clarified.

According to the spokesperson, it is pleasing from Westnetz's point of view that the repair work on the transformer station premises was carried out within a very short time. The wind farm has therefore been reconnected since January 30, subject to the turbines not yet being operational. The team needed a total of five days. Westnetz had expected the work to take up to three weeks.

Author: Volker Stephan