Mike McManus / Business Development and Strategy / Siemens Wind Power / Onshore Americas
Using a combination of time-lapse footage, aerial photography and behind-the scenes action shots, the video “Reaching New Heights” documents the steps involved in constructing our concrete wind turbine tower, located at MidAmerican Energy’s Adams wind farm in Adams County, Iowa.
At a time when the U.S. leads the world in wind energy production, with wind producing enough power last year for 17.5 million American homes, Siemens is always looking for innovative ways to drive down the cost of wind power and further expand wind energy in the United States. We’ve been working with Wind Tower Technologies of Boulder, Colo. on our patented concrete tower technology – conceived, designed, engineered and constructed entirely in the United States. We manufactured the blades for the turbine at our blade factory in Fort Madison, Iowa, and the concrete formwork was sourced from EFCO Corp. in Des Moines.
We have released a video depicting the construction of this concrete wind turbine tower technology that is designed to capture stronger winds at higher altitudes – resulting in more potential energy production and increased project revenue for customers. Using a combination of time-lapse footage, aerial photography and behind-the scenes action shots, the video “Reaching New Heights” documents the steps involved in constructing our concrete wind turbine tower, located at MidAmerican Energy’s Adams wind farm in Adams County, Iowa. At 379 feet from ground to hub, the concrete turbine tower is more than 100 feet taller than turbines constructed with steel towers. With blades extended, the turbine reaches a height of 557 feet, making it just a little taller than the Washington Monument.
The completed unit lets the turbine blades sweep up to 557 ft.
Check out the video for a look at how this innovative concrete tower technology is built: https://goo.gl/qCd1Ya
What makes this patented tower system so unique is the on-site match casting process. Rather than using grout on the joints or providing other special surface treatments between tower sections, this match casting process allows each section of the tower to match perfectly to its adjacent sections. With an eye towards cost savings for our customers, we cast the tower segments onsite – increasing the use of local labor and materials and eliminating transportation costs associated with off-site fabricated tower sections.
This concrete turbine – one of 64 Siemens wind turbines in operation at MidAmerican Energy’s 154-megawatt Adams wind farm – serves to validate processes and will pave the way to full commercial applications of the tower, including future taller towers.
Filed Under: Construction, Towers
