Adwen & LM Wind Power Unveil World’s Longest Wind Turbine Blade
Offshore wind turbine manufacturer Adwen and turbine rotor blades supplier LM Wind Power have unveiled the world’s longest wind turbine blade.
The 88.4 meter wind turbine blade has been designed for Adwen’s AD 8-180 wind turbine, an 8 MW wind turbine with a 180 meter rotor diameter. The image shown above is of the very first of the wind turbine blades for this new design, manufactured at LM Wind Power’s factory in Lunderskov, Denmark.
“When you are building the largest wind turbine in the world, almost everything you do is an unprecedented challenge,” said Luis Álvarez, Adwen General Manager. “We are going where no one else has ever gone before, pushing all the known frontiers in the industry. Having developed and integrated together with LM Wind Power the first unit of the longest blade ever and being able to start testing is a key step forward in the development of our AD 8-180 and proves that Adwen is at the forefront of the industry.”
According to Adwen, “the engineering teams of both companies have been working together for months to design and integrate a blade that represents an important step forward in the race to lower the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCoE).”
The new 8 MW wind turbine is a big step towards lowering the LCoE of offshore wind energy, with the LM 88.4 P blade being designed with manufacturability and reliability at the forefront of developers’ minds. “The 88.4 meter length of the blades is the best compromise between swept area, energy production, and the weight as well as the loads transferred to the wind turbine,” Adwen said in their press release. This provides the best combination of balance of plant costs, and goes a long way to ensuring that the AD 8-180 will be a wind turbine capable of low electricity generating costs.
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How in the hell are they going to transport a blade the length of a football field?
Their factory is about 10km from the port. I guess they transport them on the rail line that’s adjacent to their factory, but even so that’s got to be a huge logistical challenge. I wonder if they aren’t wishing they’d built their factory right at the port considering how big these blades have become.
They are mushing the envelope
I’m not familiar with the term ‘mushing the envelope’ but I assume it has something to do with a team of sled dogs.
Soon, we’ll be able to 3-D print these things right on the barge that’s installing them.
Maybe weave and epoxy the carbon fiber on-board, but that’s a far cry from any current “printing” process. Fiberforge’s tailored blank process was almost like printing using carbon tape, but only made 2D blanks which were then thermoformed to final shape.
Guess it depends on your definitions of “print” and “soon.”
A big helicopter at each end?
Lighter than air crane.
Actually they use a pair of trucks. Warning: Wide Right Turns!
OMG what a great pic! I wonder if MHI Vestas is working on longer blades for their 8M 164.
Actually we’re seeing a left turn there.
That’s
insaneimpressive.With such big blades Adwen should have been able to claim bragging rights as the most powerful turbine, but it is only matching the nameplate capacity of the Vestas V-164. With a radius that is so much bigger than the Vestas V-164, why does the Adwen AD 8-180 have the same 8 MW nameplate capacity. It must be limiting the maximum rotation speed. At low wind speeds, the AD 8-180 probably generates more energy than the V-164. I wonder if the gears in the V-164 allow it to run at higher rotation speeds than the direct drive in the AD 8-180.