Photo of Clipper’s 2.5 Megawatt turbine — the 7.5 megawatt turbine will be much larger.
The Queen is investing in the world’s largest wind turbine. It’s a prototype of a new line of wind turbines called “The Britannia” which will be produced by Clipper Windpower, based in California. The turbine tower stands about 328 feet, has a diameter of 492 feet, and can generate 7.5 megawatts. Currently, the largest installed wind turbine is the massive Enercon E-126, which is rated at 7 megawatts (see of our previous post here).
The sale was made to the British Crown Estate, which owns most of the seabed off Britain’s shores, regularly leases out its land to wind farm projects but has never invested in the turbines. The prototype turbine is part of Britain’s ambitious goal of generating 33 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2020.
The Crown Estate press release says:
This investment will allow The Crown Estate to gain firsthand knowledge of the challenges facing the development of wind turbines specialised for deep water marine deployment as the process of engaging industry to develop the next phase of offshore windfarms begins. If the industry is to reach the current delivery target of a total capacity of up to 33 GW by 2020, this kind of support and research will be invaluable.
In addition to a unique and diverse property portfolio, encompassing urban and rural estates, the marine interests of The Crown Estate include almost the entire UK territorial seabed out to 12 nautical miles and around 55 per cent of the UK’s coastal foreshore. In addition, The Crown Estate has the rights to lease seabed for the generation of renewable energy on the continental shelf within the Renewable Energy Zone which extends out to approximately 200 nautical miles.
Via: Crown Estate Press Release
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I think it will probably be 328 feet tall, as if it was meters it would be taller than the Eiffel tower, and over twice the E-126
the article states feet
“The turbine tower stands about 328 feet, has a diameter of 492 feet, and can generate 7.5 megawatts.”
the problem with a roughly 500 foot diamter is that the tip speed of the blade goes supersonic at decent rpm. blades are very Noisy even at mach .8 … i hope these people have thier aero-smarts for such a thing. mach 1 = roughly 1100 ft/sec - circumference of a 492 foot rotor at tip is 1545 feet . Tip speed is going to take some fancy airfoil design.
Hi there, i am a company in uk and operate in
africa also, i am much into renewable energy
[solar panels and windturbines], i would like
to have some informations on this 7.5mw wind turbine, and the estimated costing of it, and whether the blades can come longer and do they really have to travel at 180kph , and how long
does it take to build such a magnificient monster. Thanks
This article should be printed in many newspaper as there is still much misunderstanding about windpower and the immense technical advances that has bin made.
Even within the industry much has to be done in way of education to maintain the modern generators, gearboxes and brakes.
This article is well written for the average person to understand and keep up the good work.
Best regards,
Rene Thoeni
ALPINE TECHNOLOGY INC.
The facts on this article are a little off. The Enercon E-126 has a 126 meter rotor diameter (413 feet). Also the revolution per min of these blades is 12 rpm. 1297.48 feet circumferance so at 12*1297.48 * 60 min/hr =934183.99 feet per hour. 934183.99ft / 5280 ft/mile = 176.92 miles per hour way less than the 654.6 mph (speed of sound).