BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
The world’s tallest wind turbine just reached full height in Germany. GICON‘s pilot turbine in Schipkau, eastern Germany, now stands 365 meters (1,197 feet) tall from base to blade tip, making it Germany’s second-tallest structure after Berlin’s TV tower. Official commissioning is set for November.
Higher altitude, stronger winds
Higher up, winds are faster and more reliable. That translates to more hours of generation per year, and GICON says its design could produce roughly twice the electricity of a conventional turbine with the same rotor diameter. One thing to flag: that’s a claim about cumulative generation over time, not rated power. The turbine’s rated capacity is 3.8 megawatts; future versions are designed to go past seven. The rotor hub sits 300 meters (984 feet) above the ground.
Building that high required rethinking construction. A crane capable of reaching 1,197 feet wasn’t realistic, so GICON used a telescoping tower instead. A specialized lifting system raised an inner tower through a surrounding lattice structure, then locked it at full extension.
“365 meters – this is an overwhelming moment for our entire team,” said GICON founder and CEO Jochen Großmann. “What was long a challenging idea and then an equally challenging construction project now stands as a globally unique facility in Schipkau.”
A second tier for existing wind farms
GICON and its funder, Germany’s Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation (SPRIND), aren’t pitching these turbines as replacements for existing wind farms. The plan is to stack them above. A “second tier” of tall turbines with their rotors spinning above those of conventional turbines already in the ground, adding generation without touching any new land.
Germany’s existing wind farms could potentially fit up to 4,000 of them, per the companies’ own estimate. That’s a significant amount of added capacity without a single new wind farm permit.
The Schipkau turbine is still a pilot, and the yield projections haven’t been proven in operation yet. GICON and SPRIND are in talks with wind energy companies about commercialization, with series production as the goal. Everything depends on what the numbers look like once it’s running.
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