Hamburg, 30 June 2017. In February this year the Nordex Group installed a 3 MW turbine on a 134 metre tubular steel tower in a test field operated by windtest grevenbroich gmbh for GP Joule, a project developer. Prior to this the manufacturer had always installed its turbines with hub heights in excess of 120 metres in continental Europe on hybrid towers – a combination of concrete and tubular steel towers. The reason for this is that for very high hub heights the diameter of a conventional lower tubular steel segment would be more than 4.30 metres, which would make it impossible to transport them under bridges. The diameter of the lower segment of the new tower is exactly 4.30 metres, which solved the bottleneck problem.
The aim of the new tower concept is to extend the know-how and experience with respect to high towers as an alternative to the use of hybrid towers. The results of the latest tests conducted already confirm that the tubular steel tower is perfectly suitable, also given the 20-year service life of the turbine. From the middle of next year this tower technology will initially be available for international markets for the recently launched N131/3600 and N131/3900 wind turbine generators. A further factor is that the new tower option once again reduces the cost of energy for the Nordex turbine fleet
The site of the project is located in North-Rhine Westphalia, in the Grevenbroich wind test field operated by windtest grevenbroich gmbh. For Nordex this test field has a historic importance. This was where, in the year 2000, the company installed and commissioned the world’s first multi-megawatt machine, the N80/2500.
