CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

A windmill on Buyea Road in the Fenner Wind Farm Project hit the ground Sunday morning. The collapsed equipment was discovered Dec. 27 by staff of Enel North America, the Andover, Mass., company that owns the project, while doing routine monitoring of their equipment.

Town of Fenner Supervisor Russell Cary said he doesn’t know whether the problem was discovered through the wind farm’s extensive computer monitoring system or by physical rounds, but he said nobody was injured in the collapse.

“This is an example of something that went right,” Cary said of the lack of casualties in the incident. “You can have all the experts in the world conduct all the studies in a lab, but the real learning happens in the field.”

Cary said planning precautions implemented prior to the construction of the wind farm in 2001 required certain setbacks and “collapse distances” to prevent damage to surrounding structures and town infrastructure in the event of an equipment failure.

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