The closing event for the CORTIR III project — bringing together project results, industry insights and a shared roadmap for what comes next in blade reliability and decision-making.
The CORTIR III project, led by Bladena and funded by the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP) – which is administered by the Danish Energy Agency, is pioneering a risk-based maintenance approach to help reduce the LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity) across the wind sector.
CORTIR III is a 1.5-day international conference closing event presenting results from the project. The first half-day is dedicated to presentation of the CORTIR III deliverables and technical results, while the second day focuses on wider industry discussion through panels and invited contributions from relevant partners and stakeholders across the wind industry. The conference is designed to link project findings with the broader challenges of blade reliability, structural risk, and decision-making in practice.
Most value in wind assets is not lost at failure. It is lost much earlier, in decisions made under uncertainty. This conference is about how to make those decisions with confidence, when blade data is incomplete, signals are mixed, and the cost of being wrong is high.
You will leave with a clear, practical way to make blade decisions without over-reacting, over-spending, or waiting for data that never fully arrives.
This is not about producing more analysis. It is about making better decisions earlier. Practical solutions to reduce the structural risk associated with known blade failure modes will also be discussed in the context of when they meaningfully change the risk picture, when they do not, and how they should be evaluated as part of a broader risk-based decision framework.
Risk-based decision framework
A structured approach to deciding when to act, when to wait – grounded in real blades reliability results.
Clarity on where money actually matters
Understand how to treat maintenance budget as a risk strategy, avoiding both over-maintenance today and surprise failures tomorrow.
Confidence before failure
Understand how to protect revenue before damage becomes critical, by focusing on risk trajectory rather than today’s snapshot.
Signal over noise
Learn to separate structural risk from inspection noise, so attention and capital go where they create real value.
The conference will provide an update on the full-scale testing programme, conducted in partnership with ORE Catapult. The test, undertaken on an 88-metre blade to conduct torsional load and understood to be an industry first, simulates the twisting forces a blade can experience in operation. This test replicates realistic loading on a large blade and provides rare validation of what actually works as a risk mitigation measure, not just what looks good on paper.
On 2 July, we’ll be attending Energy Insurance London 2026, where insurers, brokers and renewable energy specialists come together to explore the challenges shaping today’s risk and claims landscape.
As the sector evolves, topics such as changing risk profiles, claims strategies and the growing role of renewable technologies are becoming increasingly complex. This event provides an opportunity to exchange perspectives and gain practical insight into how the industry is adapting.
If you’re attending, visit our team to discuss how independent root cause analysis (RCA) can support more confident underwriting, clearer liability decisions and stronger claims outcomes.
Event date: 2nd July 2026 Location: The Mermaid, London Blackfriars Event website: https://energyinsurancelondon.com/
Panel discussion: Claims – Repair, Replace or Abandon?
This session explores how rapid technological change is reshaping claims strategies in the renewable energy sector. It will examine how decisions to repair, replace or abandon assets are made, the impact of business interruption, and how engineering insight and new technologies are supporting faster, more effective claims resolution.
Bladena’s independent root cause analysis provides a critical foundation for these decisions—helping insurers clearly understand blade failures and supporting confident, evidence-based outcomes.
Bringing both engineering depth and an operator perspective, Mathias will share how RCA and technical insight can strengthen claims decision-making in complex scenarios.
Why attend our panel discussion:
Gain insights from a real operator perspective
Understand how engineering expertise and root cause analysis (RCA) shape claims decisions
Learn how performance and asset condition influence risk, downtime, and claims outcomes
Explore practical approaches from Bladena (a RES company)
Connect with experts across insurance and renewable energy
Meet the expert
Mathias Kristian Reding. Director of Engineering Mathias leads global engineering strategy for wind turbine blade solutions at Bladena, combining structural expertise with real-world operational insight. He works closely with insurers and asset owners to deliver independent root cause analysis and technical guidance across complex claims and performance challenges.
With over 15 years of engineering experience—including nine years specialising in wind turbines—his expertise spans RCA, structural blade solutions, asset management, R&D, and both laboratory and field testing.
Mathias has extensive experience in diagnosing blade failures and supporting data-driven decisions on repair, replacement and long-term asset strategy, providing insurers with the clarity needed to make confident, defensible decisions.
If you’re attending and would like to discuss a live claim, underwriting challenge or blade failure scenario, arrange a meeting with our team during the event.
By Andrei Buliga, Digital Blades Project Director at RES, supporting Bladena
When a wind turbine blade fails, insurers need more than a description of the visible damage. They need to understand what happened, why it happened, who may be responsible, and whether the same issue could affect other assets.
That clarity is not always easy to reach. Early information can be limited, conflicting or shaped by the interests of different parties. And where uncertainty remains, insurers can face greater exposure to dispute, misattribution, repeat failures and long-term cost.
Bladena provides independent root cause analysis for wind turbine blade failures, helping insurers make evidence-based claims decisions with greater confidence.
When the cause is unclear, claims decisions become harder
Blade failure claims can quickly become complex. Multiple stakeholders may be involved, each with their own interpretation of the incident. When there is no clear, independent technical evidence to rely on, it can be difficult to separate fact from assumption, or to determine whether a proposed repair addresses the real cause of failure.
For insurers, this creates uncertainty around some of the most important questions in the claim:
• What was the actual failure mechanism? • What factors contributed to the failure? • Is the failure isolated, or could similar assets be exposed? • Are proposed repairs technically appropriate? • Is there enough evidence to support a clear liability position? • Could the same issue happen again
Visible damage does not always explain the true failure
Conventional approaches often focus on where a blade has failed, what repair may be required and what can be seen on the surface. But visible damage is often the outcome of a deeper issue, not the explanation in itself.
Wind turbine blade failures are rarely driven by a single factor. Their behaviour can be shaped by design characteristics, manufacturing conditions, transport stresses and operational loading. In many cases, the true cause of failure only becomes clear when these factors are assessed together. That’s why root cause analysis is so important.
Bladena’s RCA process is designed to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to failure. By combining specialist blade structural assessment, operational evidence, modelling and simulation, Bladena helps distinguish between the visible symptoms of damage and the true origin of failure.
[Comparison table]
Conventional approaches may focus on…
Independent RCA helps reveal…
What damage is visible
Why the failure occurred
What repair may be required
Whether the repair addresses the underlying cause
The individual incident
Whether there may be wider fleet-level exposure
Differing stakeholder interpretations
Evidence-based understanding of causation
The visible blade condition
A defensible basis for claim evaluation
Evidence-led insight for clearer claims decisions
Bladena’s independent root cause analysis gives insurers a more robust technical basis for claim evaluation, liability discussions and future risk assessment.
With RCA and specialist structural analysis, insurers can:
• Establish a clear, unbiased understanding of what happened • Assess liability using objective technical evidence • Distinguish between failure symptoms and failure origins • Validate whether proposed repairs address the true underlying cause • Evaluate the risk of recurrence across similar assets • Support negotiations with transparent, defensible documentation • Make more informed decisions across claims, underwriting and risk evaluation
This can be particularly valuable in multi-party claims, where differing perspectives and commercial interests can make resolution more difficult.
Independent RCA in action: disputed blade failure claim
Bladena combines specialist structural insight with practical understanding of turbine behaviour in the field. As part of RES Group, Bladena’s insight is strengthened by real-world operational experience across a global renewable energy portfolio.
If you’re working through a disputed claim, liability question or blade failure scenario, Bladena can provide independent technical insight to support claim evaluation, liability discussions and repair decisions.
Following a blade break incident, an insurer faced a disputed claim involving multiple stakeholders and differing interpretations of the technical cause.
The insurer needed an independent assessment to clarify the failure mechanism, understand whether the event was isolated or indicative of wider fleet risk, and establish a defensible position for claim resolution.
The challenge
Different parties had presented different views of causation, leaving the insurer without the clarity needed to assess liability or move the claim forward. Bladena was brought in to provide an independent investigation that could go beyond surface-level damage interpretation and determine the underlying failure mechanism.
Bladena’s role
Bladena carried out an independent root cause analysis, delivered without commercial ties to any of the parties involved. The investigation combined specialist blade structural assessment with operational evidence to determine the true cause of failure.
This approach allowed Bladena to test different explanations, rule out unsupported assumptions and build a clear technical causation narrative.
The impact
The RCA gave the insurer a clear, unbiased and technically substantiated basis for claim evaluation, liability discussions and stakeholder alignment.
The findings supported: • a clearer causation narrative • improved liability clarity • reduced uncertainty in claims decisions • faster claim resolution • reduced dispute complexity • a stronger negotiation position • better visibility of potential fleet-level risk
For the insurer, the value was not only in understanding a single failure. It was in gaining the evidence needed to make a confident decision under scrutiny.
Andrei is Digital Blades Project Director at RES, specializing in structural blade performance. Trained in advanced wind‑energy engineering with deep grounding in blade physics and years of RCA work, he brings a proven understanding of how blades behave and fail under real operating conditions. Andrei’s expertise and insight allow him to convert structural blade knowledge into risk‑anchored decisions.
He brings a forward‑leaning, engineering‑driven vision to the industry as an author and conference speaker. His guiding principle: physics first — everything else is noise.
Bladena is part of RES, following its recent acquisition, and focuses on advanced blade analytics and performance solutions. Read our recent press release.
A 2.0 MW V90 turbine, commissioned in 2008, experienced a shell debond from the boxbar, leading to concerns about the integrity of the blade and the potential for similar issues across other assets.
A 1.7 MW wind turbine with 50.2 m blades suffered damage when approximately 0.5 m of the pressure side shell at the tip was torn away by a lightning strike. The trailing edge was also separating as the blade rotated, putting the turbine at risk of downtime.
A 5 MW wind turbine with 59.5 m blades, commissioned in 2013, was being curtailed due to blade overload. An open trailing edge in the mid-span region increased structural risk and limited safe operation, reducing turbine availability.
Solution
Our team completed a root cause analysis and applied D-TE™ to 90 blades to eliminate the open trailing edge and restore blade integrity. The solution was designed to remove the overload risk and enable normal turbine operation without requiring structural repair.
Impact
The intervention increased turbine availability and eliminated the risk of further asset damage. The certification body confirmed that the D-TE™ solution did not affect the blade’s load-carrying capability, providing assurance of long-term operational safety.
A 0.9 MW wind turbine with 27 m blades, commissioned in 2012, was being curtailed due to blade overload in strong winds. The turbine risked reduced energy production and operational inefficiency.
A 1.5 MW wind turbine with 34 m blades, commissioned in 2003, was experiencing open trailing edges. The operator sought stronger blades with higher resistance tolerances and aimed to extend the operational life of existing blades by an additional 10 years.
