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Queen of England Buys World's Biggest Wind Turbine (7.5 Megawatts!)

by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 06.11.08
Science & Technology (alternative energy)

Clipper Wind Turbine photo

World's Biggest Wind Turbine
The Crown Estate of England knows which way the wind blows and has decided to acquire the prototype of the world's biggest wind turbine, Clipper’s 7.5 megawatt MBE turbine, also known as the Britannia (pictured above is Clipper's Liberty model, which produces 2.5 megawatt).

The previous record was held by the Enercon E-126 wind turbine which is rated at 6 megawatt (pictured below), but can produce around 7 in real world conditions. While the Enercon is land-based, the Britannia will be located in deep waters near the UK. This makes sense because the marine interests of The Crown Estate include almost the entire UK territorial seabed out to 12 nautical miles , about 55% of the UK’s coastal foreshore, and 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..

Enercon E-126 Wind Turbine photo

Why is the Queen Interested in Wind Power?
Rob Hastings, Director of the Marine Estates at The Crown Estate, said:

“We believe that our support for the Britannia project, through the acquisition of this purposely designed new generation offshore turbine project, will drive forward the development of turbine technology designed for the challenges of the offshore environment. This is an important step in the future of offshore wind and a great opportunity to help establish a new industrial base of activity to advance the UK’s leadership in renewable energy.”

Of course, it's probably also a good financial investment. We're not the biggest fans of monarchy, but we'd rather see wind turbines than Rolls Royces.

Wind Power
Norwegian Wind Power Could Become Europe's Battery
Enercon E-126: The World’s Largest Wind Turbine (for now)
Wind Power Produces 123% of Residential Energy Demand in Rock Port, Missouri
New Wind Power Record in Spain: 40.8% of Total Demand!

Green Queen
Wind Turbine for Buckingham Palace
Her Majesty goes Geothermal at Buck House

More on the Queen's Wind Turbine
Clipper Wind Power
Crown Estate Press Release about Britannia Offshore Wind Turbine
The Queen Buys The World’s Largest Wind Turbine: 7.5 Megawatts

Comments (16)

I wonder what the max is for a single turbine. Will we see 10-15 megawatt ones with advanced materials in the next few years?

jump to top Anonymous says:

Yes, yes we will see large advancements in wind turbinr technology.

jump to top Ron Demers says:

The Chinise are bulding a factory to mass produce
a 1 gig wind turban. The maglev.

jump to top ron hard says:

I don't give a toss either way on the monarchy but take a look around the Buckingham Palace website and you'll see a number of green initiatives that are in place.

http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page3718.asp

jump to top Jamie says:

you aren't going to be seeing any 1 GW turbines coming out if china or anywhere else. Such a turbine's height would be measure in km, and no currently know materials are anywhere near strong enough for that.

Ny the way, do wind farms ever cover the ground beneath the turbines in solar? That'd be an efficient use of land.

jump to top Anthony [TypeKey Profile Page] says:

One doesn't often get the opportunity to use the phrase
'Go ma'am go' very often but I think it's appropriate to this news!

jump to top weee says:

"The Chinise are bulding a factory to mass produce
a 1 gig wind turban. The maglev."

You are confusing two news-items.

1)A Chinese company wants to build conventional horizontal axis wind turbines with maglev bearings.

2) An American company that claims to be able to build a 1GW turbine. However the only thing they presented to the world is a nice computer generated picture of a blown up Savonius type wind turbine. Savonius type wind turbines are very inefficient. Furthermore, building a wind turbine of this scale with completely new technology is not something a small start-up firm can do. The history of wind energy technology has shown that the only way to get from small to big, is to do all the intermediate steps.

It is very likely that this company is just a fly-trap for naive investors.

jump to top Anonymous says:

"The Chinise are bulding a factory to mass produce
a 1 gig wind turban. The maglev."

You are confusing two news-items.

1)A Chinese company wants to build conventional horizontal axis wind turbines with maglev bearings for the axis.

2) An American company that claims to be able to build a 1 GW turbine. However the only thing they presented to the world is a nice computer generated picture of a blown up Savonius type wind turbine. Savonius type wind turbines are very inefficient. Furthermore, building a wind turbine of this scale with completely new technology is not something a small start-up firm can do. The history of wind energy technology has shown that the only way to get from small to big, is to do all the intermediate steps.

It is very likely that this company is just a fly-trap for naive investors.

jump to top Pieter says:

Fantastic. Nations used to compete using weapons of war, building ever larger battleships. Hopefully this competition is moving to sustainable technologies, prompting an arms race that will save rather damn our species.

A turbine that large must be quite a site to behold.

jump to top Icelander says:

wind enerji consult manifactör broşör ı want

jump to top mehmet emin leblebici says:

There are materials strong enough to support a km height wind turbine. And that is carbon nano tubes. It is as light as plastic and 50 times stronger than steel. which makes it possible for achieve that.

jump to top Juno says:

Hopefully the Queen's turbine will work better than the ones here in Taiwan:

Of the 82 wind turbines that make up Taiwan Power Co's wind-powered energy generation plans, as many as 51 turbines have at one time or another been inoperative.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/06/24/2003415612

jump to top Steven Crook says:

There hasn't actually been a "Queen of England" since the year 1603, unless you completely overlook the historic Union of Crowns.

jump to top bob says:

Great article.

Please let me know if it is unacceptable to use this image to discuss and present methods of adding wind power to smart grid applications.

Also, please provide the information to correctly acknowledge the contributor

Thank you

jump to top David Dolezilek says:

I have read about the meglev before it is not a standard wind mill like we see now.

jump to top Matt says:

i love this thing too bad queenie beat me on ebay

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