The project to develop the world's most powerful wind turbine used on the Estinnes wind farm was co-financed by the European Commission with up to € 3.3Million from the 7th Framework Programme. "Estinnes is a milestone on our ambitious road to sustainable energy. All those having worked hard to bring this project forward should take pride today in their achievements, and take courage for the work ahead", said Commissioner Piebalgs after the inauguration. Piebalgs went on to say that the E-126 turbine technology and the Estinnes wind farm seem to be “one the most suited and best developed options to further increase the onshore wind power exploitation potential in Europe at a high supply security and at affordable costs”.
“At the moment, all E-126 [turbines] of the Estinnes wind farm are running at max. 6 MW nominal electrical power, said Bernhard Fink, head of the Enercon Sales Department Belgium. “Preliminary results of the measurement campaign have shown that in the course of next year Enercon will be able to increase the nominal power of the major part of the [turbines] at least towards the intended 7 MW”.
The 7 MW Enercon E-126 wind turbine is not only the largest turbine ever put into operation in the world but it is also said to be the most efficient. For a wind farm equipped with such turbines the utilization factor expressed in MW/square kilometre increases by a factor of 2.3 compared to applying state-of-the-art 2 MW class wind energy converters.
To install the 198 metre high machines, the world's largest crawler crane was used: a 1.600 tonne crane that was developed and constructed especially to lift the giant 127 m diameter rotors in one step.
This E-126 wind turbine comprises the most advanced power electronics in use in the wind sector and is able to provide grid stabilising ancillary services which were previously reserved for conventional power plants. This project will be the largest and highest capacity wind park in the world that delivers services where power electronics have been incorporated in the wind turbines themselves. This innovative adoption of power control-electronics contributes to improving not only the performance of the wind energy converter but also the power system stability (regulation of active power, voltage, frequency and reactive power in both normal and emergency situations). These new capabilities are a significant and indispensable feature to allow for a higher penetration of wind power into the European power systems.
Estinnes is expected to generate at least 187 GWh a year and will go some way to contributing to the European Commission’s commitment to supporting the wind industry in achieving its 2020 target of installing a total wind power capacity of 180 GW.
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