The world's tallest 492-foot wooden wind turbine is now officially online in Sweden, as unveiled by Swedish startup Modvion, Interesting Engineering reports.
The 2-megawatt (MW) renewable energy giant is currently powering approximately 400 homes for energy company Varberg Energi, as per Electrek, located just outside Skara, northeast of Gothenburg.
The startup describes the technological marvel as the future of wind power, as per BBC. It supports significant advantages over steel wind turbines, such as its components being more accessible to transport.
(Photo : DAVID MCNEW/AFP via Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - Electric energy generating wind turbines are seen on a wind farm in the San Gorgonio Pass area on Earth Day, April 22, 2016, near Palm Springs, California. - San Gorgonio Pass is one of the largest wind farm areas in the United States.
The wind turbine is reportedly modular in design, made of spruce wood, and built in a factory before being constructed on-site. On the outside, the muscular walls of Modvion's record-breaking towers are reportedly built of 144 layers of laminated veneer lumber (LVL).
To build the curving elements of the tower, the company employs each layer with three millimeters of sustainable spruce. The turbine is then constructed in seven pieces, with 28 stacked modules held together by bonded steel fittings.
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Renewable-Energy Giant
Electrek adds that Modvion claims one of its primary selling factors is that the modular tower is more straightforward to move on ordinary highways than steel. Furthermore, the timber towers are carbon negative, meaning that it does not only store but also absorb carbon during its lifetime.
Even before operating the wooden turbine, its construction was already sustainability-centered because the roughly 200 trees used to construct Modvion's turbine tower are reportedly grown sustainably, meaning more are planted after cutting down the needed lumber. Post-operations, the towers may be recycled as high-strength beams for construction projects.
Steel towers can also be recycled; however, as per Hackaday, most wind turbine towers' steel may be recycled and repurposed, whether for new wind turbine towers or something else. Steel may also be melted using zero-carbon energy sources, with the world's steel manufacturers increasingly transitioning to such 'green steel.'
Wooden Wind Power for the Future
The industry for wind power has reportedly taken notice of the advantages of wood, as SSE Renewables, one of the UK's top wind power providers, allegedly said in the same BBC report that it was aware of Modvion's work and that it would investigate wooden towers as an alternative to steel.
However, many of SSE's projects are offshore and can only be accessed by large ships, so the modular transport advantages are less noticeable.
Looking forward, Modvion hopes to build another taller turbine shortly and, if all goes well, to create a plant in 2027 that will make 100 modular turbines yearly.
According to Lundman, the sector is presently constructing 20,000 turbines each year. He adds that the company aims for 10% of those turbines, or roughly 2000, to be made of wood during the next ten years."
This proves to be the first commercial installation of Modvion's wooden wind turbines, which started in June of this year, as per the company's website.
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