“uåX˜äŠÊ˜·³Ç

SeebaWind Service managing director Holger Hamel said turbines were still able to make money even after the 20-year life cycle has ended.

"We want to prolong the period of earning money from the turbine," he said.

The German company is using software developed to help detect fatigue in turbines in a bid to prolong their use.

"If you take a bar of steel and you bend it over and over again with the same power at one time it will break, not because you increase the power but because you have fatigue. That is more or less what can happen to a tower as well.

"We need to learn quite a lot to see if we can go 20 years and beyond," Hamel said.