Third blade failure at wind farm in Ragunda municipality, Sweden (provisional)
Mar 2026Published 25 Oct 2026Responsible editor: Chief Editor
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What happened
According to a feature article published by EcoPortal.net on 22 October 2026, a wind turbine blade broke off at a 175 MW wind farm in Ragunda municipality, Jämtland county, central Sweden, on Friday 13 March 2026. The article describes 33 turbines rated at 5.3 MW each. It reports that the broken blade was of a two-piece design, which it links to blade failures at the site in September 2021 and July 2022.
The 2022 failure occurred at turbine 13, where a family picking berries nearby saw debris fall. The article says technicians spotted the latest broken blade from a nearby road before reaching the tower, and inspectors found nothing left hanging. The area around the damaged tower was closed off while the rest of the park kept running. The article says repair was expected to be slow because a crane and a replacement blade both had to reach the site over forest roads.
The article reports that no one was hurt in any of the three incidents. No contemporaneous report of the March 2026 failure has been confirmed.
Contributing factors
The article reports that the first failure in September 2021 was traced to a lamination defect in one blade, a bonding problem between composite layers and resin during manufacture. It reports that the second failure in July 2022 was concluded to be most likely installation damage, though a manufacturing fault could not be ruled out. The cause of the third failure was still under analysis at the time of the article. The asset manager had said it was waiting for that analysis before drawing any conclusion about a link between the three events. The article notes that flaws of this kind are not visible from the ground.
Lessons learned
- Hidden bonding flaws inside composite blades may not be found by a visual check from the ground, so operators should consider targeted inspection methods such as scanning.
- Where the same turbine model has repeated blade failures, investigate for a common cause across events rather than closing each one separately.
- After a blade failure, keep cordons and inspections of neighbouring turbines in place, and plan crane access and replacement blade transport in advance for forest sites where seasonal conditions limit heavy haulage.
More lessons on structural integrity and turbines, from every incident on the register.
Source
Published 2026-10-25. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.
