The LM Wind Power company in Lunderskov Denmark understands that size matters in the wind power industry. Because they have been making fiberglass turbine blades since 1978 and they are getting larger. In June 2010, they created a record when they air freighted two 137-foot-long blades. But this turned out to be chickenfeed 6 years later.
Rapid Progress Because Size Matters in the Wind Power Industry
Prototype blades twice that length were turning gracefully at Wind Power in Lunderskov Denmark by 2016. “It was amazing,” engineer Lukasz Cejrowski recalls with a laugh. “The feeling of happiness – yes, it works, it’s mounted.”
Plans are already in place for 350-foot-long turbine blades. By 2020, these may be powering 12-megawatt wind turbines. Their structure with one blade fully vertical would be 853-feet-tall, similar to a 79-story building. The sound you hear in the background is our brain wheel-spinning to catch up. Size matters in the wind power industry when one turbine like that could wind power 16,000 households. Excitingly, the cost could be less than new nuclear.
The Engineering Behind This Remarkable Thought for a Green Future
Bigger turbines capture more energy. Moreover, the higher they are in the sky, the stronger and more regularly the wind blows. The new mega-blades are a mix of carbon for strength, and glass fiber for lightness.
LM Wind Power tests its turbine blades rigorously. It bends and stretches them, buffets them in wind tunnels, and flexes them back and forth millions of times. It also tests them against lightning strikes. Most of these giant turbines will be in offshore wind farms, where the wind blows even stronger. We will also not have to look at them every morning when we greet the day, because they will be beyond the curvature of the earth.
There will be substations nearby on artificial islands, feeding power to mainline grids along electric cables. We were curious to know how they would ship 350-foot-long turbine blades. There is talk of floating platforms towed out to sea, or alternatively floating factories that move from site to site.
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Preview Image: Large Turbine Blade
