Nordex wins large South African wind turbine order
German OEM also says TÜV Süd approved its hybrid 179-metre tower for its N175/6.X model
Nordex has won a 336MW order to supply and install 57 of its N163/5.X wind turbines from an unnamed client in South Africa.
The order is for a cluster of three wind farms with 112.1MW each in the country’s Eastern Cape province, which benefits from very good wind conditions, the German OEM said.
Installation is slated to start in the second half of this year, with first electricity expected to be fed into the grid a year later.
Nordex will manufacture the concrete towers of the turbines locally, creating up to 300 jobs in the region. The order comes with a service and maintenance contract.
Nordex with more than 1.1GW installed currently is market leader in South Africa, which is trying to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.
New turbine certified
The company on Monday also had said that TÜV Süd granted a type approval for the hybrid 179-metre-tower developed in-house for its latest turbine model, the N175/6.X.
The certificate is an important prerequisite to obtaining building permits in Germany, the manufacturer said.
“Germany is one of the target markets for the 179-metre tower,” said Karsten Brüggemann, vice president of the central region at Nordex.
“With a rotor diameter of 175 metres and an installed capacity of more than 6MW, the N175/6.X turbine in combination with this high hybrid tower makes it possible to considerably increase energy production, especially at low-wind sites far away from the coast.”
A hybrid tower consists of up to 20-metre long, convex concrete segments assembled on-site and tensioned before the steel sections, the nacelle and the rotor are installed on them.
The company said it will install its first two turbines of the N175/6.X this year, one on a tubular steel tower of 112 metres, and the other on a concrete-steel hybrid tower with a hub height of 179 metres.
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