With a length of 75 meters, Siemens has built the world's largest rotor blades for wind turbines. The giant components made of fiber glass will be used by Siemens' new offshore wind turbine generation with a capacity of 6 megawatts (MW). They will be installed on the first prototype of Siemens' 6-MW offshore wind turbine with the 154-meter-rotor, which will be erected this summer in Oesterild in Denmark. 

Record-breaking rotor thanks to special technology

Each rotor has a diameter of 154 meters covering 18,600 square meters, which is the size of two and a half soccer fields. The tips of the blades move at up to 80 meters per second, or 290 kilometers per hour.

The huge rotor was made possible by special technologies that enable Siemens to make extremely strong yet lightweight structures. The B75 blade is the world's largest fiberglass component cast in one piece and around 10-20 percent lighter than it would have been using traditional technologies.

More cost-efficient turbines

Henrik Stiesdal, Chief Technichal Officer at Siemens Wind Power, explains how the size of the turbines makes a difference in relation to the prize of the electricity produced:

“The prize on electricity from offshore wind turbines decreases, when the size of the turbines increases. This is due to the simple fact that infrastructure costs for a big turbine do not increase proportionally with the size. This means that the turbine might be more expensive in absolute numbers, but in relative numbers it is cheaper.”

Leading turbine testing facilities

The installation of the Siemens wind turbine at Oesterild managed by DTU Wind at Denmark’s Technical University and is part of a greater project that the Danish wind industry, researchers and public authorities are all cooperating on: Maturing the market for offshore wind turbines and lowering the price on the turbines in comparison to electricity produced by fossil fuels. Click to read more about the Oesterild Test Center or business opportunities within the Danish wind energy industry.