Gicon designed a wind turbine with the highest pylon in the world. The first one is under construction between existing windmills that are combined with photovoltaics at the site of a former coal mine in Germany’s Lusatia region.
The iconic Fernsehturm TV tower in Berlin is the tallest structure in Germany. But sky-high wind turbines could soon surpass it. Dresden-based engineering company Gicon laid the foundation stone for its first one. The site is some 130 kilometers to the south, in Lusatian coal land.
Officials declared the innovative high-altitude machine under construction in Schipkau the tallest in the world. Envisaged at up to 364 meters to the tip of the blade in a vertical position, it would by far surpass any wind turbine on land and be just a few meters shorter than Fernsehturm.
The nacelle will be mounted on a four-legged lattice tower
Some global manufacturers do have a bit taller designs and prototypes in the maximum height category, due to longer blades. On the other hand, they are bottom-fixed offshore wind turbines, so a part of the mast is in water.
Additionally, the rotor of Gicon’s innovative structure, a quadripod lattice tower, can be as high as 300 meters. It would be a world record.
The sky-high turbines will be located at another wind park! The sites for the new turbines are between the existing ones. The company’s Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer Jochen Grossmann earlier said the high-altitude turbines don’t take away the wind from the machines below.
There’s two times more power on upper floor
The Gicon turbine is expected to generate two times more power with the same swept area, according to its engineers. Grossmann has compared it to the conditions at offshore facilities, but with lower construction and maintenance costs, as they are on land.
The location, the Klettwitz wind park, includes a photovoltaic facility. It means that, when the first new turbine is commissioned next year, the hybrid facility would produce electricity on three floors.
Importantly, it was built on a former lignite mine, part of one of the country’s coal hubs. Klettwitz is therefore a unique experiment in the energy transition.
Conversely, energy giant RWE prompted outrage two years ago for dismantling a wind park and the village of Lützerath, among others, to expand its Garzweiler coal mine in North Rhine-Westphalia
Sky-high measurement mast exploring another site in Germany for Gicon’s turbines
In the exploration phase, Gicon used a 300-meter high wind measurement mast which it called the tallest in the world. It has just reassembled the structure at another wind power plant in North Rhine-Westphalia, in Jüchen.
The company has said that it sees great potential in abandoned open cast mines. Gicon particularly counts on Bavaria in its ambition to build 1,000 sky-high turbines by 2030.
On a less optimistic note, some locals in the Schipkau area and environmentalists have warned that higher and more powerful turbines kill more bats and birds.
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