One Down in Scituate
Scituate Wind neighbors who monitor the online power dashboard noted some strange readings followed by a dip in output after a thunderstorm Monday night. Despite several days of tweets and posts, it took reporters a while to track down the details of the Scituate wind turbine outage.
According to Nancy White’s reporting in Wicked Local Scituate “Scituate wind turbine may have been hit by lightning” (6/27/13):
Sometime during the storm – between 8 and 9 p.m. – the turbine had a number of errors within its electronic systems, (Sumul) Shah said. The turbine has not been running since that time. “It’s a slow and tedious process,” Shah said of going through the turbine’s many electronic systems and errors. “We have to look at everything, soup to nuts.”
Some residents noted what appeared to be a blackened area on one blade, but according to White, Shah did not confirm any charring and said the blade has a system to protect it from lightning.
Scituate’s DPW director Albert Bangert also told White that the turbine may have been hit by lightning, but the only damage was a blown fuse.
Wind Wise ~ Massachusetts 
This may be the first benefit of a neighborhood wind turbine, to act as a neighborhood lightning rod for the neighborhood’s protection.
Now if the neighbors can succeed in turning off at night, to get some sleep, they may get some benefit from the extra cost the rest of us have to pay to keep it running.