My experience with a southern California windfarm was very interesting. I have described this as one of my forensic cases. especially by what I found to be violations of NEC in the application of Magnetic trip-only molded case circuit breakers, and the worst choice of surge protection: Case 7 - Involved a field of over 60 wind turbine generators. Each generator was driven by a wind turbine, developing power @ 480 volts, connecting to several local grids, and ultimately to the utility. Each squirrel cage induction generator was located at the top of a tower and its output was connected down the tower and into a large electrical cabinet.

An electrical surge developed on the collection grid into which these 60+ generators fed power. During this incident, the surge protection furnished by the manufacturer failed on each of the sixty 480 V electrical panels, leading to many electrical panel fires. No personnel were involved, but the manifestation of the arc was evident in each of the destroyed electrical panels. In each case, the air was ionized around the failed surge device, leading to the destruction of many electrical panels. My study was to determine how that surge was generated, whether the surge protection was adequate and located properly on the 60 electrical panels, and if other protection was adequate

To generate power, there had to be some excitation system, and that was provided by capacitors for each generator, Once running, the capacitors for starting were removed from the circuit, but the grid required capacitors for power factor correction, Control of these capacitors probably led to the unwanted surges, since capacitor switching all three phases simultaneously was undesirable, but necessary.

Each electrical cabinet was independent, but carried the three phases from the grid, with surge protection mounted in the cabinet. The actual surge device was only 0.5 inches in diameter, the size one would expect to see in a radio or some other non-industrial application. The surge device was not only inadequate, but improperly located. Mounting outside would have been safer, and permitted less damage.

Between the individual electrical cabinets and the grids was a molded case circuit breaker with only a magnetic trip function that was set between 8 and 12 times the generator output current. Unfortunately, this device was not rated for interrupting fault current due to the absence of a thermal time-overcurrent component. Of course, the National Electrical Code bans their use in this manner. Curiously, the supplier had a specification sheet that listed that it had an interrupting rating, Mr., Love contacted the Underwriter Laboratory to question how this interrupting rating had been granted, many phone calls were futile, and UL claimed it had not granted that interrupting rating.

After many depositions and meetings with attorneys, the case went to court where the judge told the attorneys to settle this out of court, since there were too many cr