Offshore wind generation plants pose an even greater challenge to the safety experts. According to Wilfried van Schwartzenberg, of Emden-based Funa Global Safety Systems, the top priority in designing safety systems for offshore wind turbines is “…to identify and deal with potential fire sources before fires can actually break out.” Van Schwartzenberg sees optimizing the interplay between the turbine’s safety and operating systems as paramount in this regard.

Companies such as Funa and Minimax belong to a small group of highly specialized firms worldwide that design complete fire protection systems for offshore wind generation plants. Since entering the offshore segment in 2004, Funa has supplied safety systems, including CCTV surveillance systems, for a large number of offshore turbines manufactured by well-known companies, such as Bard and Areva Multibrid. It also recently installed an automatic fire extinguishing system on a helideck at a transformer station at Germany’s Apha Ventus offshore wind farm.

Naturally, safety comes with a price tag. According to van Schwartzenberg, Funa’s fire protection system costs between EUR 30,000 and 50,000 per wind turbine. However, this is a relatively small amount, considering the potential damage a fire at an offshore generation unit can cause. Should all preventive measures fail to stop a fire from breaking out, a large number of fire alarms mounted on the tower, the nacelle, and the rotors will alert an onshore fire control centre, which then triggers the release of an environmentally-friendly fire extinguishing agent held at the ready at a number of strategic points on the turbine.