Germany’s Volkswind, established in 1993, is one company that is working to repower its wind farms. The company has built over 60 wind farms with wind turbines from Siemens, Enercon, Vestas, GE, Gamesa and Fuhrländer, and has a further 4,000 MW are under development.
As the turbines on its older wind farms come to the end of their useful lives, Volkswind is taking the opportunity to repower these facilities. The first repowering projects were performed in the German counties of Goslar and Wolfenbüttel, while the output of the Immenrode wind farm has considerably increased after its turbines were replaced with ones 2.5 times higher and with double the rotor blade length.
The two Enercon E40's installed on the sites had an output of just 500kW, and so have been replaced by two Vestas V90 and one Vestas V112, meaning that the energy output has been multiplied by a factor of seven.
Volkswind is also celebrating receiving planning permission for new wind farms in three other countries. In Montana (US), the company has developed a 20-MW wind farm project with power purchase agreement and grid connection within only three years.
“The timely execution of the site inside 2011 has enabled the project to be eligible for the 'Cash-Grant' promotion (which was scheduled to close in Jan 2012),” revealed the company. The project was sold in its entirety to the turbine manufacturer, Goldwind, who expects to build the site in 2012.
In the Polish market, Volkswind has developed the first ready-to-build project. Situated in central Poland with an output of 24MW, the project has been granted a grid connection contract and all necessary permissions and is ready to be built in 2012.
Lastly, Volkswind obtained its first building permit in the UK in December 2011 for a 12.5-MW wind farm in Northamptonshire. This wind farm has the potential to provide the energy equivalent of up to 7,000 households.
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