This is a nearly 30-minute video of a Danish Wincon wind turbine running away in the San Gorgonio Pass some time in the late 1980s or early 1990s. It depicts the field crew’s various attempts at stopping the rotor to prevent the wind turbine from destroying itself.
I had the video digitized for its historical content from a video cassette provided by Mark Haller from his collection when he worked for SeaWest.
In light of what we know today, the various attempts to bring the rotor under control may seem comical in a Keystone Cops sort of way, but it was deadly serious at the time. The good news is that the turbine was saved and no one was injured bringing it to heel.
The Wincon 108 was a large turbine for the period. The rotor was 19 meters in diameter (62-feet) and swept 284 m² of the wind stream. Wincon was a spinoff from the wind turbine manufacturer Micon after the two brothers behind Micon split sometime in 1986.
Unlike other Danish wind turbines at the time, the Wincon did not use pitchable blade tips to control overspeed. Instead, Wincon’s blades deployed parachutes to slow the rotor when all other controls were lost. It’s obvious from this video that the deployment mechanism left a lot to be desired. They simply didn’t deploy in this case, leading to the desperate attempts to bring the rotor under control.
It was common knowledge on California wind farms at the time that one way to stop the rotor from spinning was to somehow get a rope tangled in the rotor. The rotor would then wind up the rope, wrapping it tightly around the main shaft, slowing the rotor if not stopping it. To get the rope into the rotor, it was necessary to shoot an arrow towards the rotor with a line attached. If successful, the spinning rotor would do the rest.
https://archive.org/details/wincon-wind-turbine-runaway-san-gorgonio-pass-mark-haller
Whether this technique was discovered by California’s homegrown windsmiths, or learned by them from their Danish colleagues we’ll never know now. But the technique is part of the historical record. Danes had used this method on Lykkegaard machines at the turn of the 19th century.[1]
Once the Wincon’s teething problems were overcome, the turbines turned in respectable performance. They first enter the state’s performance reporting system in 1987.[2] By 1991 there were 200 Wincon’s operating in California, generating 26 million kWh.[3] In 1995 they generated nearly 34 million kWh and nearly as much in 2000.[4] In contrast, in 1987 there were nearly 1,500 Micons operating in California.
The first failed attempt begins at 1.00 minute into the video with a man on the bucket of a bucket truck. He unfurls a roll of plastic sheeting, releases it, and it floats to the ground.
They try again and it too fails.
At 8 minutes they try a third time. The plastic wraps around the tower but not the rotor.
At 10 minutes, they try again. This time the plastic hits the rotor and is immediately shredded.
At 13 minutes they try to loft a parachute into the rotor.
At about 16 minutes the rotor shreds or deflates the parachute.
At 17.45 the rotor finishes shredding the parachute.
Then it’s back to the plastic sheet.
At 23.00 the rotor shreds the plastic sheet again. But you can follow the plastic sheet as it gets wrapped around the main shaft.
At 24.30 they attempt to fire an arrow through the rotor.
At 25.30 they shoot another arrow. This time successfully.
At 27.00 there’s commentary that the turbine threw the arrow back down to them.
At 27.30 they attempt to throw a tarp up into the rotor.
Finally, at 28.00 you hear a crack as the rotor engages with the tarp and begins to get entangled. You hear “alright” as someone off camera feels they’re getting somewhere. Though the tarp is wrapped around only one blade, the drag is sufficient to slow the rotor enough that the lift falls on all the blades and the rotor gradually comes to a halt.
“Killed it,” “It’s dead,” can be heard.
At 29.17 there’s a bare-chested, blond haired, worker in short shorts opening the blade tip housing where the parachute is stored.
And that’s it. They dramatically saved the Wincon 108.
My thanks to Mark Haller for preserving this amazing footage.
[1] Preben Maegaard, “16. Consigned to Oblivion,” in Wind Power for the World: The Rise of Modern Wind Energy, vol. 1 (Singapore: Stanford Publishing, 2013), 355–87, p 378.
[2] “Results from the Wind Project Performance Reporting System: 1987 Annual Report” (Sacramento, California: California Energy Commission, August 1988), https://web.archive.org/web/20150906081401/http://www.energy.ca.gov/wind/documents/1985-1993_reports/WPRS_1987_P500-88-005.pdf.
[3] “Results from the Wind Project Performance Reporting System: 1991 Annual Report” (Sacramento, California: California Energy Commission, December 1992), https://web.archive.org/web/20150906080540/http://www.energy.ca.gov/wind/documents/1985-1993_reports/WPRS_1991_P500-92-002.pdf.
[4] “Results from the Wind Project Performance Reporting System: 1990 Annual Report” (Sacramento, California: California Energy Commission, October 1990), https://web.archive.org/web/20150906082341/http://www.energy.ca.gov/wind/documents/1985-1993_reports/WPRS_1990_P500-91-010.pdf, and “Results from the Wind Project Performance Reporting System: 2000-2001 Annual Report” (Sacramento, California: California Energy Commission, December 2002), https://web.archive.org/web/20160428153839/http://www.energy.ca.gov/wind/documents/2001_reports.html, https://web.archive.org/web/20150906054451/http://www.energy.ca.gov/reports/2002-03-25_500-01-018.PDF.
