Tag Archives: Japan Wind Energy Association

Wind farms in earthquakes and tsunami?



They keep working.

Kelly Rigg in Huffpo writes

Battle-proof Wind Farms Survive Japan’s Trial by Fire:

Colleagues and I have been directly corresponding with Yoshinori Ueda
leader of the International Committee of the Japan Wind Power Association
& Japan Wind Energy Association, and according to Ueda there has been
no wind facility damage reported by any association members, from either
the earthquake or the tsunami. Even the Kamisu semi-offshore wind farm,
located about 300km from the epicenter of the quake, survived. Its
anti-earthquake “battle proof design” came through with flying colors.

Mr. Ueda confirms that most Japanese wind turbines are fully
operational. Indeed, he says that electric companies have asked wind
farm owners to step up operations as much as possible in order to make
up for shortages in the eastern part of the country:

The only wind farms not operational are stopped because of failure
of the grid to feed electricity into, says Mr. Ueda:

Eurus Energy Japan says that 174.9MW with eight wind farms (64% of
their total capacity with 11 wind farms in eastern part of Japan)
are in operation now. The residual three wind farms (Kamaishi 42.9MW,
Takinekoshirai 46MW, Satomi 10.02MW) are stopped due to the grid failure
caused by the earthquake and Tsunami.

So they wind farms built like that could most likely survive a hurricane

in the Georgia Bight.

-jsq