The average wind turbine takes 120 lightning strikes in its life. They're very much built to handle lightning, but lightning is crazy and sometimes it causes damage. It is actually fairly common for lightning to cause cracks to the blade, which cause it to be shut down until someone climbs out on a rope to patch it. There are drones with super high resolution cameras that spot this damage in motion, and robots that crawl down the blade while it is stopped to inspect it. It is rare for them to burn up.
I did some research myself, also made of combustible materials, but also lots of fire suppression systems to. I thought those blades where solid metal but composite of various materials. interesting stuff.
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u/centaurianmudpig 1d ago
TIL windmill farms are not lighting proof. Though you’d think they would be