Blade-Finger Storage With No Safe Way In Or Out

Coyle Group placed a safety officer on Evishagaran Wind Farm in Northern Ireland, and a safety site visit was timed to coincide with a trial run. As the trial got under way, it became clear to our officer that more than half of the blade fingers, the storage areas for the turbine blades, would have problems with safe access and egress. The transport supervisor echoed the same concern, because the issue would also affect offloading and installation.

With thirteen turbine locations across the site, eight were identified as needing remedial action. The blade fingers ranged from 2.5m below the level of the hardstand, the tested area built to receive cranes and transport, to 2.5m above it. Left unresolved, that height difference put the people offloading and installing the blades at real risk.

The immediate task was reaching the blade fingers safely, but the deeper cause sat in the site levels themselves. The hardstand and the storage areas had ended up at different heights, and at eight of the thirteen locations that gap was too great to work across by hand.

The first thought was to bring in machinery to reshape the ground and bring everything to one level. On this site that was not possible, so the fix had to work with the levels as they were rather than change them.

After discussion with the site team, our safety officer proposed scaffold access as the most effective way forward. A local scaffolding company was brought in to survey each location and build a bespoke solution to suit it. This is not a standard procedure, so a great deal of coordination went into managing the new risks the scaffold itself introduced.

We backed the work with a full risk assessment and put the issue on the agenda for daily meetings and toolbox talks. With those controls in place, the solution proved to work well and let offloading and installation proceed safely and cost-effectively.