Gamesa, a global technology leader in the wind energy market, is attending the Energy 2011 Hannover trade fair (hall 27, stand M34) to showcase its new wind turbine, the G136-4.5 MW Class III, which is specially designed for low-wind sites. The device strengthens the newest turbine system Gamesa has released to the market, the G10X, with 4.5 MW of unit capacity. It shares the same design standards as the G128-4.5 MW Class IIA, including minimal cost of energy (COE) and a modular design (a segmented blade design unique on the market with 66.5 m), which makes it as easy to transport and assemble as a 2.0-MW turbine and simplifies maintenance.
"The G136-4.5 MM, now commercially available for installation in 2012, benefits from the exhaustive validation and testing programme conducted on the G10X-4.5 MW platform," said Javier Perea, Gamesa sales and projects general manager.
With a 136-metre rotor diameter and a hybrid 120-metre tower, the turbine features all of the innovative technologies Gamesa developed for the G10X-4.5 MW system, including Innoblade®, Multismart®, ConcreTower®, CompacTrain®, GridMate® and FlexiFit®. The latter is a self-mounting, nacelle-coupled crane, which has been validated and tested and is capable of hoisting the main components of a turbine.
The turbine's swept area, 14,527 m2, exceeds that of the G128-4.5 MW by 13%, enabling an increase of up to 8% in annual energy output vs. the G128-4.5 MW at low-wind sites.
New offshore office in Hamburg
Gamesa continues to build on its offshore strategy, announcing plans to open an office in Hamburg, Germany that will supply what is set to become one of the world's main offshore wind energy markets in coming years.
The Gamesa outpost, staffed by multi-disciplinary teams (sales, technical staff, etc.) will open in the second quarter of this year to complement Gamesa's existing offshore network. To date, the company has chosen the UK as the global headquarters of its offshore business (sales, technology and manufacturing), and has a technology presence in Virginia (US), where it is developing an initial prototype of the G11X-5.0 MW turbine for testing in the final quarter of 2012. The Hamburg office will also handle marketing activities for onshore turbine systems.
"Germany represents one of the world's top offshore wind energy think tanks, drawing engineers, lending institutions, subcontractors and customers. We also chose Hamburg as the site of our next offshore office because of its proximity to our potential customers and their needs," said José Luis Blanco, managing director of Gamesa's offshore business.
Gamesa has stated that it intends to play a major role in the offshore business to guarantee its ability to tap demand generated in the Northern European market.
The company is currently engaged in the design and development of two families of offshore turbines, based on the proven and validated technologies used in its G10X-4.5 MW turbine. Initial prototypes of the G11X system, with unit capacity of 5 MW, will be tested in the final quarter of 2012, with a pre-series ready in 2013. Gamesa is also at work on developing another family of offshore turbines, the G14X, with capacity of 6 MW-7 MW, whose pre-series is scheduled to debut in 2015.