HSE issues safety notice for service lifts in wind turbines

Employers in Renewables have been told by the Health and Safety Executive to urgently review guarding arrangements for service lifts in wind turbines after it was discovered that workers could easily come into contact with moving parts.

In a safety notice, the HSE said its investigation of an incident found that the design of landing gates and guarding meant it “did not eliminate or reduce access to dangerous moving parts of the lift car.”

As a result, it was possible to reach the lift car and become crushed or sheared against the gates.

The HSE said it may not be appropriate to replace access gates and/or landing guards because of the risks involved, but operators must assess and adopt suitable hierarchical control measures.

Operators should immediately check that the necessary control measures are in place for all Wind Turbine Generator service lifts. The control measures include:

• landing gates are positioned and constructed to prevent access to dangerous moving parts, that is far enough away so that they are not reachable, and they are interlocked to prevent lift operation unless closed
• if positioned close to a carrier, the gates have either no openings or they are limited to prevent contact with any dangerous moving parts, with glass or fine mesh guards for example
• there are means to stop the movement of an empty carrier at each landing, where that carrier can be sent or called from another level and there are reachable dangerous moving parts with no other means of preventing access
• all locking gates and car doors are fully operational and in good repair.

The HSE advises that lifts without these measures in place to be withdrawn from service.