India's largest wind turbine manufacturer Suzlon Energy said that it has completed the worldwide program for strengthening and reinforcing a certain set of blades which suffered cracks.

At the completion of the program only 179 blades of the total fleet of 1,251 blades developed cracks. However Suzlon upgraded the entire fleet in support of its customers.

Mr Andy Cukurs CEO of Suzlon Wind Energy Corporation said that “We are happy to report the completion of the program in September, 2009. This project has been a priority effort for us.”

Mr Cukurs added that ''In keeping with our commitment to our customers decided to retrofit the entire S88-V2 fleet and replace the few cracked blades at our own cost to eliminate any possibility of further issues, no matter how small the chance.”

Instances of blade cracks were first discovered in late 2007 in the operation of some of Suzlon's S88 wind turbines in the United States.

(Sourced from Business Line)