World’s tallest wind turbine going up now in Germany

Renewables International

The hub height alone is 165 m. Add on another 65 for the blades, and the top blade tip will reach 230 m into the sky.

The Eiffel Tower is 324 m tall; the Empire State building, 380 m. Pretty soon, wind turbines might be competing with those heights, to judge from recent developments.

According to Jürgen Quentin of FA-Wind, a new turbine currently being built in the county of Rhein-Hunsrück will be the largest one in the world when it is completed in a few months. Permits for two additional turbines of this type have also been applied for in the area – and 35 other such machines have already received permits and are in the pipeline. The information is available from FA-Wind’s recent overview of the German wind sector in the first quarter of 2016 (PDF in German).

The unit is an example of what Bernard Chabot calls the silent wind revolution: towers becoming taller and rotor blades longer relative to generator size. Indeed, 3.3 MW is only slightly larger than the average generator currently installed in Germany and not even half the size of the largest generator available.

Taller towers put the rotor blades into an area of less turbulence and steadier wind speeds, while the longer blades increase the swept area – and hence, the energy that impacts the generator. It then remains relatively modest in size so that it can run near maximum output under modest wind conditions. FA-Wind says the data for Q1 2016 show a continued to trend towards light-wind machines.

 

Source: Renewables International. Re-produced with permission.