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Clean Power Suzlon Energy Wind Project

Published on November 11th, 2014 | by Mridul Chadha

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India’s Suzlon Energy Installs World’s Tallest Hybrid Wind Turbine — 120 m

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November 11th, 2014 by  

India’s largest wind energy solutions company, Suzlon Energy, is looking to rapidly expand its product portfolio as it gets ready to exploit the big-ticket reforms that the government is expected to implement in the wind energy sector soon.

Suzlon Energy Wind Project

The company recently unveiled the tallest wind turbine of its kind in the world. The 2.1 MW turbine sits on top of a 120-meter tower made of concrete and steel. This is the world’s tallest hybrid wind turbine, the company claims. The new model would potentially help the company set up the 300 MW offshore wind energy project Suzlon Energy announced some time back.

The turbine is located in the western state of Gujarat, which boasts the third-largest installed wind energy capacity in India. Suzlon Energy is working on a large wind park in the state that now has an operational capacity of 1.1 GW. The company plans to increase the capacity of the park to 2 GW, making it the largest wind park in Asia.

With the reintroduction of some crucial financial incentives for the wind energy sector, Suzlon Energy is buoyed with optimism. The company expects that about 3–3.5 GW of wind energy capacity will be added in the country annually over the next few years. It has recently received several big orders to provide integrated services for wind projects across several states in the country.

The government plans to launch the National Wind Energy Mission soon, which will see projects being constructed in states that have relatively lower wind energy potential. The new wind turbine launched by Suzlon Energy can reportedly make use of the wind resources better and give 12–15% more output compared to other wind turbines.

Suzlon Energy had been under tremendous financial strain over the past few quarters due to sluggish investment and waning regulatory support. The company has, however, managed to free itself from at least some of those strains. CEO Tulsi Tanti expects the company to report a profit soon.

Related:

India Wind Energy Potential 20-30 Times Bigger than Thought

India’s Wind Energy Capacity To Double In Five Years: GWEC

India Eyes $100 Billion Investment In Renewable Energy

Image Credit: Suzlon Energy

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About the Author

currently works as Head-News & Data at Climate Connect Limited, a market research and analytics firm in the renewable energy and carbon markets domain. He earned his Master’s in Technology degree from The Energy & Resources Institute in Renewable Energy Engineering and Management. He also has a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering. Mridul has a keen interest in renewable energy sector in India and emerging carbon markets like China and Australia.


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  • David in Bushwick

    This is the future of onshore turbines because at higher altitudes, the wind blows more of the time increasing capacity. Simple economics determines the ultimate tower height compared with the increased power generation as the height increases.
    And a 400 foot tower sounds tall but NYC now has a new building that is 1396 feet to the roof. This will open up the Southeast to wind power generation, if they want it.

    • Larmion

      On the other hand, taller turbines are visible from a long distance, thereby incurring opposition from communities too far away from the turbines to cash in but close enough to see it.

      As for opening the Southeast: a taller turbine in the midwest or another windy area will still outperform the same turbine in Southeast. As such, it won’t fundamentally change the equaiton for wind turbine developers.

      Fortunately, the Southeast borders some extremely windy states that are in the same Eastern grid: Oklahoma and Kansas and, a little further away, Iowa and eastern Nebraska. If Tres Amigas ever gets built, Texas could show up in force too. In the even further future, large scale offshore development on the eastern seaboard could lead to massive imports from Virginia and the Carolinas.

      The south would be better off focussing on its huge potential for biomass and solar. Southern wind turbines will always be a bit less productive than those further to the north and west.

  • http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard

    What is a “hybrid wind turbine”?

    • Matt

      Maybe they mean hybrid wind tower. It says “120-meter tower made of concrete and steel”

      • Ronald Brakels

        Yes, I’m guessing that’s what it means.

  • JamesWimberley

    SFIK you don’t need super-high towers offshore, where the wind stays strong down to sea level. The rotors have to clear boats, that’s all. But onshore, with normally rougher terrain, and wind-slowing trees and houses, wind speed rises more with height, so tall towers pay off. The Germans even site turbines in forests, where the first 30m just gets you above the trees.

    • Larmion

      On the other hand, taller towers leave you more room for increasing the rotor diameter. The bill of materials for a single turbine with the same swept surface as two smaller turbines is far lower and the cost of building a single, big monopile is far lower than the cost of two monopiles.

      On land turbine sizes are constrained by factors like transport. At sea, the only real constraint is cost and that’s where big turbines shine. A commonly cited rule in engineering is that doubling the size of a product increases its cost by as little as 60% because most fixed costs stay the same. So far, offshore wind turbines are no exception to that rule.

      • Omega Centauri

        Within limits. The amount of extra structure needed grows more than linearly with height. Note that the tower base is a lot thicker than higher up. Even without transport constraints there are competing effects that must be optimized.

        • Larmion

          There obviously are limitations, but it seems we still haven’t reached them – 6MW turbines like the Haliade are doing well and 8MW ones are beginning to trickle in. Many companies have 10MW desings in the works as well.

          Ultimately, the difficulty of maintaining what are top heavy structures and the cost of strengthening foundations will limit growth, but neither is an issue as of 2014. I highly doubt the turbine base (or mast as a whole) will have a large influence on the cost base. It is by far the simplest component of a turbine and the cost of structural steel is rather low.

          • timbuck93

            WOW 10 MILLION WATTS from just spinning…. amazing!

          • Larmion

            It’s never going to be 10 million watts. The nameplate capacity is what the turbine would produce in perfect condition and in strong winds. In reality, a 10MW turbine produces 4-5MW on average.

            Even 5MW is a huge number though. As little as a few decades ago, 75kW was considered big.

          • Ronald Brakels

            A typical wind turbine in South Australia’s largest wind farm will produce its maximum output for maybe 15% of the time.

          • Henry WA

            Perhaps more interesting, for what percentage of the time does it produce at least 40% of its rated maximum output?

          • Ronald Brakels

            You’d have to look at the actual wind farm output to know that. I presume availability for Snowtown II is around 80% so I would expect a typical wind turbine to be operating at 40% or more of capacity over half the time, but I am too lazy to actually try and find out.

          • Will E

            and most amazing
            —————- its everywhere.

          • Offgridman

            Not sure where you are at, but figuring out the tower height in US feet is what amazed me. 120 M equals 400 feet, or a 40 story high building. While there are structures that high in the larger cities of the world, it is still a very impressive number just for a tower to put a turbine high enough to produce all of those watts.

      • APEppink

        What you say is true as far as it goes but marine const is much more exp w anchoring, const of the base, rust, corrosion, Xmsn of power ashore. MUCH more exp.

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