Second blade failure of 2024 at Dogger Bank A offshore wind farm

On the morning of 22 August 2024 a blade failure occurred on a large multi-megawatt turbine at Dogger Bank A, an offshore wind farm under construction in the North Sea, United Kingdom. It was the second blade failure at the same project in 2024, following an earlier event in May of that year. The Dogger Bank Wind Farm consortium disclosed the incident publicly the same evening, stating that no one was injured or in the vicinity when the damage was sustained and that the surrounding marine area had been restricted in line with safety procedures. The failure occurred during the commissioning process being carried out by GE Vernova, the turbine manufacturer. Construction operations across the wind farm continued. The cluster of blade events on the same turbine design during 2024, including a further event at a separate offshore project outside the UK, attracted wide industry attention and raised questions about blade design reliability and manufacturing and installation quality controls. No fatalities or injuries were reported in connection with any of the 2024 events on that design.

Reported from a preliminary investigation by GE Vernova, the turbine manufacturer, disclosed publicly around eleven days after the event. The turbine had been left in a fixed and static position during commissioning, with the rotor locked and the yaw system, which orients the rotor to the wind, disabled. It was then exposed to high winds during a subsequent storm. A statement issued by the Dogger Bank Wind Farm consortium reported GE Vernova's analysis as finding that the event was not caused by an installation or manufacturing issue but occurred during the commissioning process. GE Vernova described this event as distinct from the earlier 2024 event at Dogger Bank A, reported as attributed to installation, and from a 2024 event at a separate offshore project, reported as attributed to a manufacturing deviation. All three were characterised by the manufacturer as having separate root causes.

1. Commissioning procedures for offshore turbines should explicitly address weather exposure of installations that are not yet in a normal operating state, including the loading condition created when the rotor is locked and the yaw system is disabled.
2. Commissioning protocols should set out contingencies for rapidly developing weather, including the steps and time required to release the rotor and re-engage the yaw system, and the fallback position if that is not feasible before personnel are withdrawn.
3. Where commissioning extends across days or weeks, weather window planning with documented go and no-go criteria should be in place, with the engineering authority for those decisions clearly assigned.
4. Where several failures occur on the same equipment type within a short period, each should be investigated on its own merits while also being reviewed together, since a fleet under intensive deployment can surface more than one distinct vulnerability at the same time.
5. Root cause findings should be shared in enough detail for operators of similar equipment to assess their own exposure to each failure pathway separately.
6. Marine exclusion arrangements and personnel accounting procedures for debris events should be defined before commissioning begins, so that they can be applied immediately on discovery of damage.

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