Enercon E-126: The World’s Largest Wind Turbine (for now)

Cue the crank anti-wind crowd:

"These things will scare the cows with the strobe effect! These things will kill bald eagles! These things need to be powered to spin when the wind doesn't blow!" (??? That was a real post on another site yesterday in relation to this turbine).

You're pretty cranky too, just in another way.

How about being positive instead of complaining until the whole planet agrees with you? There will always be people who don't get it; the goal is to spread information and let those who want to understand join the fight.

Someone needs to start bribing politicians to get permission to build these things, stat!

I want one in my back yard.

Attractive. World's largest birdchopper.

the bird argument is getting old;

Biggest killers of birds are house cats, cars, power lines, trees, etc. If you care about birds, you should deal with those first, not with turbines.

Second, unlike in the 70s, turbines now take into account migration paths and things like that. They are very benign, and it's not like global warming/air pollution/etc doesn't kill animals... Think of the alternatives to turbines. Would you prefer coal plants?

The bird problem is also greatly reduced by the solid construction of the towers. Earlier wind turbines were mounted on scaffolds that birds would often choose as nesting sites. The new designs minimize this effect.

I want to live in one!

Why not, go further and integrate solar cells on the skins of the blades - generating PV electricity AND wind power?

willy are you just bashing everything? I'll admit I get incredibly annoyed with the 'extremist' treehugger type (evil cars, I ride bikes and I'm god for it types) but this thing is pretty cool :)

Can't say I keep up with general power delivered from the usual source of power in the US (coal...) but how does it compare to a coal power plant? seems like it's geographical (and certainly it's negative environmental) footprint would be significantly less then a big coal plant.

'I want to live in one!'
---Now that is an interesting original idea. The interior volume within the bottom 50ft of the base of the tower seems to be quite big. With some ingenious design, deployment of a livable space might just be possible. It might be a really good use of the otherwise wasted space.

@Bill

No offense dude, but that is a slightly (too) amateur of an observation.

Those blades are made of one of three (or a combination) materials:

1. Aircraft grade aluminum
2. CRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic)
3. CF (Carbon Fiber)

This is to reduce weight and therefore rotational mass. Plus how would you properly orient the panels toward the sun?

Let me preemptively answer a question that always comes up: people often wonder why those things always have three blades nowadays, and not dozens of blades. The reason is that only wind-drag turbines increase efficiency with the number of blades; lift-type turbines create lift in the blades, which pull the blades into the rotation. With this kind of turbine, the increase in rotational inertia caused by additional blades more than negates any added turning power. Going from one blade with a counterweight to two blades causes a 20% boos in efficiency, but the next blade only boosts efficiency another 5%. (This is according to a technical book I recently read, called "wind power". I forget the author.) Each additional blade adds less and less, while increasing the cost by a larger proportion.

@ Houston:

My remark was mostly meant as a sign of affection for the elegant design of the Enercon wind turbines. It might not me so practical because the transformers ,that used to be in a separate building with older models, are now inside the tower. There is still a lot of room above these transformers of course, but these transformers give off a lot of heat. That is OK in the winter, but in the summer that might just be a little bit to warm.

I hope these monsters are a rare breed and that smaller multiple units become standard instead.

While they look pretty and simple, the logistics of building, assembling, and maintaining these things is a nightmare. Add to the fact that you have a single point of failure on a massive scale for and object that this 450 feet off the ground.

I've posted elsewhere about the wind turbines in southern Minnesota and their impact. One thing that has come to light recently is that they have had two fires in the pods of these units that have shut them down. Now they need to bring in the heavy equipment again to disassemble and repair them.

Cranes to build these things when they are 200 feet tall are monsters, the ones shown above are world-class rare and weigh in at hundreds of tons when fully assembled, many require special roadways to be built and construction pads to be assembled.

In addition, if they can keep them low enough you don't need to light them up like a christmas tree with anti-collision lights.

Someone commented about living in one, you wouldn't want to. While the complaints about the sound of large turbines is bogus, they do make noise when you stand by the base of one, and there is a constant hum when inside the tower. They are industrial sites, power generation stations, not just an empty tube. It would be kind cool otherwise though.

-Lego

I agree that there are not too many places on land where monsters of this size would be practical. However, Europeans are putting some very large turbines off-shore. Larger sizes are more practical on the continental shelves. Barge-mounted cranes for installation and maintenance are huge and very mobile.

From a kWhr/$ point of view, the bigger the better. ‘MUCH more wind power way up there.

I’m pro-wind. What do the anti-winders propose?

houston-

There used to be this great British detective show with this HUGE curly haired PI living in a windmill. I can see the same thing for the future.

Solar on the blades is possible but impractical (thin film solar skins). It would work if solar cells were practically free.

"While they look pretty and simple, the logistics of building, assembling, and maintaining these things is a nightmare.

In Germany there is already a lot of experience with large windturbines with tower heights of 100 meters and more. And it is definitely not a nightmare.

Regarding the quoted (incedental) problems in Minnesota: one should not forget that American producers are about five years behind in technology with German and Danish producers.

Personally I prefer a to look at fewer, but bigger wind turbines than a lot of small ones cluttering the landscape.

Higher towers, means higher wind speeds and thus higher yields. Smaller windturbines would mean less kWhs per dollar.

"Cranes to build these things when they are 200 feet tall are monsters"

They can be transported in parts, no problem.

Furthermore, there are some interesting developments with climbing cranes, i.e. the bottom part of the tower is built, the crane climes up this first section, the next section is built using this crane, the crane can climb up a little higher, and so on.

"I agree that there are not too many places on land where monsters of this size would be practical."

I would say especially in the US you have big boring prairies where they would fit in perfectly.

The bird chomping issue....It's called composting!
There'll always be alot of birds...need to work on the energy issue...it's much more pressing don't you think!
I want one in my neighbours backyard!

I live in the "Flint Hills" of Kansas USA.
A couple of years ago a company offered our family a lease to construct a wind farm that would cover our and neighboring properties. The clamor was deafening from anti-wind types.In short they made it impossible, using zoning regs, even though this is one of the best sites in the country that is near transmission lines.It is still hard to believe that some of the stupid reasoning mentioned above is really used by opponents!

ENERCON -PROOF EVERTHING IS POSSIPLE

Hmmmm, I wonder just how many kilowatts & barrels of oil are needed to produce all that carbon fiber?

"Hmmmm, I wonder just how many kilowatts & barrels of oil are needed to produce all that carbon fiber? "

A lot less than to build a coal/natural gas/etc plant, that's for sure. And once the thing is built, you don't need to get new fuel for decades..

I want too say something about the bird thing, When i look up to this monstersize mills i see a lot of birds hanging in the sky very near to the blades, but they dont come near to it. it looks as if they play with it. very amusing to see. So i dont think that the birds have trouble with it.

Birds learn too.

"Birds learn too."

Love that, so true. In fact it's my experience that they learn faster than many anti-(anything helpfull to the ecology) types do.

As mentioned above, there is indeed such E-126 prototype planned in Belgium, Estinnes (not Estiennes as wrongly written in the Enercon magazine "Windblatt").
But... Instead of 1 E-126, Estinnes investment partners have decided to build 11 (yes, eleven) such giants at once, and, construction has started a few weeks ago, in april 2008.
As it still concerns a prototype and as there is still environmental research to be completed, the European Union gives some follow up research support.
By the way: I like those giants for their very 'slow' rotation rate (5 seconds for one revolution is the top speed, with probably 25 à 30% more power output than the nominal 6 MW).
Thanks to such slow rotation the visual perception is extremely calm, peacefull, composed... as a monumental art work.
To be continued.

I have immense interest in the wind turbine.Is there anyone who could give me materials so that i can teach myself.

It is amazing that one E-126 turbine can generate as much electricity as six of the turbines that exist in the nearest wind farm to the south of my home. I look forward to seeing more of these gentle giants.

We can't afford this technology. Our government is too busy spending money on worthless crap like $1 million dollars for a teapot museum in Maine and a multi million dollar bridge to no where in Alaska. Guess we will just have to keep using coal =-( . Sounds like a good technology though.

Does anyone know how much one of these would cost? I want one for my house

I do think this technology is going to work well. And it's increasingly scalable, right down to the level of individual homes.

I can understand some people might dislike the sight of 450-500 foot towers around, but the point several have made about increased efficiency at higher altitudes is inescapable.

We'll learn much from T. Boone Pickens massive project in Texas. Given the money he's devoting to it, my bet is he'll be able to pull it off, especially now that the state is backing him with billions allocated for infrastructure (transmission lines).

This is already working. Houston gets over 40% of its electricity (that may be just residential -- not sure) from wind, and Dallas gets right at 40%. That's mighty significant.

Then there's a small town in Missouri that is 100% wind-powered -- with an extra 23% generated they export. You can bet residents there are mighty happy to watch their electric meters run *backwards*!

There are in-between possibilities, too. Why not put smaller wind turbines on top of tall buildings? Maybe the energy would be just enough for that building or a small area around it, but any help would be great.

I WANDER WHAT IS THE RATIO :
HEIGH VS WIND POWER VS GENERATOR POWER.
CAN ONE INVEST MORE IN A POLE HEIGHT INSTEAD IN A GENERATOR AND ROTOR SIZE(THAT IS A MAIN PART OF A PRICE).
THIS CAN MINIMISE THE NOISE LEVEL AND CAN MAKE ALMOST ANY PLACE ON EARTH POSSIBLE TO GENERATE A WIND ELECTRICITY.
ABOVE 200 METERS ARE ONLY FEW BIRDS FLY AND NO BATS.

How much is the installed cost of one of the E-126 units?
Is there significant maintenance required?
Is there an estimate of useful lifetime?

the installed cost of one ready-to-produce E-126 is about 12 million Euro (15,5 million US dollar), price including the massive concrete foundations (30m across and 4m thick).
So, it's clear a E-126 is'nt something to buy it for a quick installation in your useless garden corner.

The crane wich are used to build theese monsters are in fact the largest crane on the planet and needs over 40 fully loaded trucks to move it (not sure, but I think it was 46).

As a matter of fact, Enercon is building the worlds largest (by faaar) windmill park in northern sweden, and will contain 202 of theese beauties among with over 900 other plants from enercon.

Total cost? about 4 billion euro. Rating as the 4th biggest industrial project in europes history.

They will hire about 800 people to build this park, and have 24/7 service station with over 150 people hired :)

Forgot to mention, those in sweden will be able to produce 11MW ^^

How cost-effective are wind power units? The bigger the better, I should say.
Levelised Cost Of Energy or LCOE) is a cost of generating electricity for a particular system. It is an economic assessment of the cost the energy-generating system including all the costs over its lifetime: initial investiment, operations and maintenance, cost of fuel, cost of capital etc. The LCOE for a 2MW Wind Power Unit, operation time 20 years range from 4 ct/kWh to 6 ct/kWh (Eurocent) the external costs are extremely low. Compare this to the LCOE of Fossil-Fuel Power Plants here the external costs alone are in the range of 6 to 8 ct/kWh
Have a look at my video showing the ENERCON E126
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQxp6QTjgJg

According to my calculator, Wikipedia, and the comments left here by intelligent people:

For about $300 billion the United States could buy 20,000 of these E-126 Wind Turbines at $15 million apiece.

America has about 100,000,000 homes, which could all be supplied by 20,000 of these turbines with electricity left over, and we could all stop paying an electric bills and their would be almost no need for Iraqi or Afghani oil.

Why isn't their a single congressman in Washington making a proposal like this?

Moreover, the United States could have skipped both wars, brought all the troops home, and built all these turbines, and the National Debt would only be about $3 trillion right now instead of $12 trillion.

And, all those hundreds of billions being spent servicing the Interest on the National Debt could be going toward healthcare and education, but it's not because America is being run by corporations, who want to make slaves of us all.

Remember these words as the U.S. falls into the Second Great Depression!

How much does Enercon E-126 weigh? Thanks.