Transponder technology is incorporated into the blades of a wind turbine to make it possible to transfer data wirelessly from each said blade to the associated tower. By providing a transponder including an RFID device in or on each of the blades and providing a reader/receiver in or on the tower support of the wind turbine, the reader/receiver can detect the operative RFID devices and/or read data from the RFID devices as the blades pass the tower.