Isle of Wight Firm Aims to build World's Largest Wind Turbine Blades

[Seabastian.Smith]

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has invested more than £15.5m in an Isle of Wight firm aiming to build giant blades for the next generation of 8MW to 10MW offshore wind turbines.

Most of the 5-7MW wind turbines in development use 60-75 metre fibre glass blades, but Blade Dynamics' new blade will be 80-100 metres in length and will be constructed of lighter carbon fibre material.

The company believes its modular assembly process for the blades could cut the levelised cost of offshore wind power by up to €10 per MWh.

[Tom Hitchcock]

It is known that as wind turbines get larger the efficiency increases, but does this only work up to a certain point? and if so, at what point do further increases in size make no difference to the efficiency?