Three wind turbine workers killed in Sinovel incident

CHINA: Three workers have been killed while installing and testing a Sinovel wind turbine in northern China.

by Wu Qi 7 January 2011

China is investigating whether cost cutting is affecting quality control (this is not the Shangyi turbine)

The incident, which occurred at a development in Shangyi County, in China's northern Hebei province, began when one of the three workers suffered an electric shock in the nacelle.

The other two workers were badly injured from the resulting fire and died later in hospital.

Sinovel has said it is currently investigating the cause of the incident.

The accident follows a recent announcement by China's National Energy Bureau (NEB) that it is launching an investigation into whether cost cutting has led to a fall in safety standards.

NEB has asked the China Wind Energy Association (CWEA) to launch a large-scale investigation of the quality of wind turbines across the country.

The investigation was preempted by a number of turbine failures. Three of these involved Sinovel turbines in Jiuquan, in China's northwest Gansu province, and Linghe, in the northeast Liaoning province. The latter incident involved a fire.

Speaking about the Liaoning incident Sinovel vice-president Tao Gang blamed fire control rather than quality issues. However, he was unable to elaborate any further on how the fires occurred.

Speaking about the other incidents, Gang denied the incidents were down to the quality of the turbine itself and instead blamed poor installation.