What Are the Downsides of Wind Turbines?
It's a fair question. If you search for what are the downsides of wind turbines, you'll get the usual list: intermittency, noise, visual impact, bird collisions, blade maintenance. Those are real. But after around eleven years on the electrical side of renewable projects—maybe ten, depending on how you count—I think the biggest downsides are the ones that don't show up in a search result.
The turbine itself is rarely the expensive problem. The balance of system is. The disconnects. The surge protection. The springs inside the switchgear. And most of the time, the root cause isn't even a bad part. It's how we buy parts.
I've personally made and documented enough of those mistakes to total roughly $150,000 in wasted budget. I now maintain our team's procurement checklist, not because I'm smart, but because I've been burned by every item on it.
The $31,000 Lesson About ABB Disconnects
In 2019, we were upgrading a small wind farm. The engineer specified an ABB disconnect switch for the combiner boxes. I found a listing that appeared to be the same part, 30% cheaper than our regular distributor. Everything I'd read about industrial procurement said to compare specifications and not overpay for brand names. In practice, comparing specifications only works when you're looking at the right specifications.
The units arrived and looked fine. I checked voltage and current ratings. What I didn't check was the exact catalog number on the ABB official site, or the certification type the local electrical inspector would require. The inspector rejected sixty units. We had to pull out every switch, redo the terminations, and pay expedited freight for the correct parts. A $4,800 saving turned into $31,000 of extra labor, inspection, and delay.
That's when I learned the difference between unit cost and total cost. Total cost includes purchase price, shipping, installation, inspection, and the cost of failure. If you only look at the first number, you're not actually costing anything.
Coaxial Cable Surge Protector Reviews Aren't a Procurement Plan
After the disconnect mess, I tightened up my process. Then, in early 2022, lightning hit a turbine communications tower. It took out the antenna feed, the router, and the controller board in the nacelle. The root cause was a small coaxial cable surge protector that was supposed to protect the line.
I chose that protector partly because I read all the coaxial cable surge protector reviews I could find. Nobody mentioned that for our coastal site, the connector type and frequency range were marginal, or that the housing wasn't rated for outdoor exposure. The protector was $34. The controller board it was supposed to protect was $8,200. The repair, including two service trips and a crane rental, was close to $25,000.
A $34 part. An $8,200 board. A $25,000 outage. The unit price math made no sense.
I don't have hard data on industry-wide surge protector failure rates. Based on our maintenance logs, surge-related failures are the second most common cause of communications outages on our sites. That's why I now judge surge protectors by specifications, not reviews. You want to know surge rating, let-through voltage, frequency range, connector type, IP rating, and replacement interval. A review can tell you a product is popular. It can't tell you if it's right for your environment.
Energy Storage Springs: The Silent Failure Point
If you don't work with medium-voltage switchgear, energy storage springs sounds like a physics question. In a spring-operated circuit breaker, they store the mechanical energy needed to close and open the breaker. They charge, they hold, and when the breaker gets a command, they release that energy in milliseconds. If a spring weakens or breaks, the breaker won't close when you need it to.
I once got a call at 3:00 a.m. because a breaker on a wind turbine feeder wouldn't close after a grid event. The technician guessed a control board failure. The actual failure was a broken energy storage spring. The maintenance manual said to inspect those springs during the five-year service. We'd skipped that inspection on a few units because the budget was tight. The replacement spring cost about $90. The emergency repair, including overtime and lost production, cost $14,000. The wind was still blowing. We just couldn't deliver power because a $90 part wasn't on the preventive maintenance schedule.
This part of the story never makes it into the downsides of wind turbines list. But it's a downside. Turbines operate in rough environments, and the electrical infrastructure around them is what keeps the power flowing. The spring is small, mechanical, and easy to ignore. Ignoring it is exactly how it becomes expensive.
The Short Version: A TCO Checklist
These stories sound unrelated, but they all point to the same problem: single-number buying. Here's the checklist I use now. It's short, but it would have saved me $150,000.
- Verify the part on the manufacturer's official site. For ABB components, that means the ABB official site. Check catalog number, datasheet, certifications, and dimensions. A listing that says 'equivalent' is not the same as a verified part.
- Calculate total cost of ownership before comparing quotes. Price + shipping + installation labor + inspection risk + failure risk. If a failure costs more than ten times the part price, buy the verified part and maintain it properly.
- Judge surge protectors by specifications, not reviews. For coaxial cable surge protectors, know surge rating, let-through voltage, frequency range, connector type, IP rating, and replacement interval. If a review doesn't mention those, it's not relevant.
- Put energy storage springs on the preventive maintenance schedule. The inspection cost is tiny. The cost of ignoring a broken spring is not.
- Keep one critical spare on site. It's easier to budget for a spare than to explain a week of downtime while waiting for a $90 spring.
The cheapest part is never cheap by the time it fails.
So, what are the downsides of wind turbines? Plenty, if you count the obvious ones. But from where I stand, the largest downside is the one we create ourselves when we treat electrical components as a place to save money. The turbine gets the attention. The disconnect gets the invoice. If you don't measure total cost, you'll pay it anyway—probably more than once.
Jane Smith
I’m Jane Smith, a senior content writer with over 15 years of experience in the packaging and printing industry. I specialize in writing about the latest trends, technologies, and best practices in packaging design, sustainability, and printing techniques. My goal is to help businesses understand complex printing processes and design solutions that enhance both product packaging and brand visibility.