A brisk, late November morning in Northern Germany provided backdrop to a ceremony held to mark completion of the structural supports of the factory slated to secure Siemens Wind Power’s position as purveyor of next generation wind turbine technologies.
Behind the ceremony, a host of developments from Siemens are coming together to enable the company to cut costs and improve efficiency of its wind power business, which already leads in offshore wind turbine construction.
Scheduled for completion by mid-2017, the Cuxhaven, Germany, wind turbine factory will provide Siemens with a manufacturing hub for its latest and forthcoming generations of large direct drive offshore wind turbine nacelles.
In the nearest timeframe, factory operations will revolve around the direct drive, 7-MW capacity D7 platform. The production facility will undertake serial production of generators, hubs and nacelle back-ends, and final assembly of these components to form complete D7 nacelles.
In time, even larger capacity machines will eventually flow from the factory’s production lines. Siemens’ Carsten-Sünnke Berendsen, who is heading the Cuxhaven project, told Renewable Energy World: “The Cuxhaven plant is our central manufacturing base for all large direct drive nacelles of our offshore wind turbines. The [8-MW] SWT-8.0-154 is an enhanced version of our models SWT-6.0-154 and SWT-7.0-154 and so its nacelle will definitely be assembled in the new factory.”
Source: renewableenergyworld.com
