Video of the Day: 7.5MW wind turbine construction

CleanTechnica

If you have any interest in wind turbines, you might enjoy this 3-minute 42-second video showing a huge 7.58 MW Enercon E126 being assembled. The first images are of the enormous circular concrete foundation, which weighs about 2,500 tons, according to text below the video.

These initial shots are informative in that they show some human figures on and near it, which provides a sense of scale. You can also see a number of steel structures that look something like an internal frame. The technology used throughout the video is present here too – very long cranes, sometimes it appears with extensions.

Drone shots are used quite a bit in the video and at about 18 seconds there is a very impressive rotating, rising shot. If you want to more closely examine details in the various construction shots, you can expand the video to the largest size and stop it to look within them. This might be worth doing because in some shots there is a lot of equipment.

You can see why drones with cameras were necessary: the wind turbine’s height is about 650 feet with a rotor diameter of 443 feet. Placing the hub at over 400 feet seems particularly precarious, and watching the workers do it with precision is very impressive. Considering that wind turbines need to be located in areas with sufficient winds to turn the blades and generate electricity, it almost doesn’t seem possible that extremely long crane arms could be maneuvered so precisely to put all the turbine pieces in place to create the whole structure, but the workers do it.

At about 3:18 there is another scale shot, where you see humans standing and walking on one blade which is on the ground.

The video’s title says the turbine is the most powerful in the world, but that seems to be untrue.

There is a 10 MW offshore turbine and Vestas has an 8 MW turbine.

The video might have been made before these two larger ones became available though. Nevertheless, the video is fascinating to watch if for no other reason than to see humans pulling off what appears to be nearly impossible.

Source: CleanTechnica. Reproduced with permission.