World’s Longest Wind Turbine Blades on Their Way to Scottish Offshore Test Site

SSP Technology of Kirkeby, Denmark has completed three prototype wind turbine blades for Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI). The 83,5 meters blades are leaving SSP Technology’s factory on July 16-18 2013 and are on their way to Scotland for the installation on a 7 MW test offshore turbine.

The blades are being transported on heavy load trucks from SSP Technology’s production site in Kirkeby located in the southern part of the island of Funen, Denmark. In the port of Esbjerg on the Danish west coast, the blades will be loaded onto special vessels for the sea transport to the installation site off the Scottish coast.

Each of the impressive blades weighs more than 30 tons. The root diameter of the blade is only 4,2 meters, ideal to facilitate smooth road transportation.

The 7 MW wind turbine equipped with the 3 SSP Technology blades can produce energy equivalent to the annual energy consumption of an average family in just 30 minutes. The turbine has a rotor diameter of 171.2 m.

SHI engineers joined SSP Technology’s design office for multiple months in the initial design phase. SHI staff also closely followed the manufacturing process onsite at SSP Technology’s factory.

SSP Technology’s engineers and factory managers will assist SHI in a technology transfer process  in starting up the serial blade production in Korea using the mould set developed and delivered by SSP Technology.

Flemming Sørensen, co-founder, CTO and Managing Director of SSP Technology has been involved in the project from beginning to end.

“Development and production of the world’s longest blade is not done over night. It is an extremely delicate process that needs constant focus, testing and follow-up. In close cooperation with our customer, we have made sure that nothing has been left to chance. Daily coordination meetings, quality checks and inspections have been a natural part of our work day for the last 24 months,” says Flemming Sørensen.

In partnership and co-operation with SHI, SSP Technology has executed the 7 MW blade project including blade design, tooling and mould manufacturing, production of test blade and prototype blade set and execution of static and fatigue testing within a very short time span, which is an evidence of SSP Technology’s ability to meet the “time to market” demands that are very important within the wind turbine industry.

The above 7 MW blade set is expected to be certified soon.

[mappress]

Press release, July 17, 2013; Image: SSP Technology