06 June 2012

Faulty Wind Turbines Must Be Lowered

Owners of a French-made wind turbine have been advised to lower their machines and keep people away from them.

The warning from the Northern Ireland Health and Safety Executive came after blade parts started falling off the Scirocco 6kW model, mainly used in domestic properties.

Trading Standards have reported manufacturers Eoltec to the appropriate French safety authorities after the design flaw.

There are believed to be 17 of the turbines in use in Northern Ireland, which up to three distributors across Ireland sold.

Owners and distributors have had difficulty contacting the manufacturers to obtain updated parts, but the Eoltec president, Jacques Souquet said they were not an installer and had "no resources to address that kind of problem".

Owner William McGaughey said legal action was a possibility given the long-running nature of the problem, but said "we don’t want to do that" and stressed: "All we want is the spare parts to get our turbines up and running again and I don’t think that is too much to ask for."

Anyone still using the Scirocco 6kW is asked to dismantle and stop using the turbine to generate electricity.

The matter has been referred to the European Consumer Centre for pan-European consumer complaints.

(NE)