A couple weeks ago I wrote about the electric grid and how stability and predictability are being impacted by the addition of weather dependent energy sources, such as wind and solar.
In Northern Europe, the current winter has been harsher than most in recent memory. In fact, in some places in Finland it has been the coldest winter in nearly 40 years. While the cold weather itself does not directly correlate with the severity of icing, it makes the return to production that much more difficult, because once the blades have ice on them it is very difficult to get rid of it before the temperature rises above 0° C. In worst case scenarios this could be weeks.
In most cases though, you would want to prevent the blades from icing in the first place with an anti-icing technology. Blade heating systems are usually the best approach, but they come with a cost, both in terms of CAPEX and OPEX.
Icing in wind turbines is nothing new. The phenomena is relatively well understood and has been studied extensively over the past few decades. First blade heating concepts were studied and developed by the Finnish research institute VTT in the 1990’s and were later commercialized by a spin-off company Wicetec in 2014. Other anti-icing technologies, such as coatings, have also since been developed, but none are perfect.
During the ongoing hard winter in Finland many news outlets have reported about blade icing like we discovered it for the first time today. I will give them the benefit of a doubt, as this year is the first time wind energy represents such a significant part of the production mix that the impact to wind energy and to electricity prices has been significant.
During my 13 years with Bladefence we encountered blade icing often. I participated in WinterWind conference in Sweden many times. An excellent conference where icing and its side effects have been the forefront topics for a long time.
Already in 2014 DTU Wind Energy estimated that a two-week standstill in a moderately sized wind farm (Stor-Rotliden, Sweden – 40 turbines) could cost in the neighborhood of 400.000 EUR. And this was in 2014 with an average Nord Pool Spot price of 30-40€/MWh. The early 2026 data for Nord Pool Spot for January in Finland is approximately 110-120€/MWh. And the units in Stor-Rotliden are small in today’s standard, just 2 MW, roughly 1/3 of the size the units currently being installed Finland. There are other aspects involved as well. Ice throw from the blades can be a significant health & safety risk and the accumulated ice on the blades can create structural issues by loading the blades in ways it was never designed to be loaded.
In a recent interview, Ville Lehtomäki, the CEO of Kjeller Vindteknikk mentioned that less than half of the turbines in Finland are equipped with blade heating systems.
And this is where I have a problem with all of this. I understand the upfront CAPEX costs of anti-ice systems and the increased O&M costs associated with them during their lifetime, but as wind energy has reached a position where the installed capacity represents well over 50% of the total production capacity, we have introduced systemic risks that are borderline negligence.
If you cannot make the investment case work with these systems included, it raises the question should you develop wind energy at all in locations where icing is likely to occur?
