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Dizzy heights
Aperture
00November Month 2012 2012 26 | NewScientist | 17
Dizzy heights WHY do people say “don’t look down”? Just imagine what you would be missing if the photographer had had similar qualms. The ants on the ground are working on a Siemens SWT-6.0-154 offshore wind turbine, a giant new machine that is being put through its paces at a wind turbine testing facility in Østerild, Denmark. The turbine boasts the world’s largest rotor with blades 75 metres long, each as big as the wings of the world’s largest aircraft, the Airbus 380. The machine’s ground-to-tip height is 197 metres, more than twice that of the Big Ben clock tower in London. The rationale for building bigger turbines is simple: longer blades harvest more energy from the wind. Siemens says the new turbine can generate 6 megawatts, enough to power 5500 households. That is 1000 times more energy per year than the firm’s first generation of wind turbines, which it built 30 years ago with rotor blades just 5 metres long. British homes may benefit more than most. The UK government is investing £75 billion in offshore power in the hope that it will generate more than a quarter of the nation’s electricity by 2020. Siemens expects the SWT-6.0-154 to play a part. It hopes to install 300 of these turbines in the waters around the UK in the coming years.
Joanna Carver
Photographer Siemens AG
17 November 00 Month 2012 | NewScientist | 27
00November Month 2012 2012 26 | NewScientist | 17
Dizzy heights WHY do people say “don’t look down”? Just imagine what you would be missing if the photographer had had similar qualms. The ants on the ground are working on a Siemens SWT-6.0-154 offshore wind turbine, a giant new machine that is being put through its paces at a wind turbine testing facility in Østerild, Denmark. The turbine boasts the world’s largest rotor with blades 75 metres long, each as big as the wings of the world’s largest aircraft, the Airbus 380. The machine’s ground-to-tip height is 197 metres, more than twice that of the Big Ben clock tower in London. The rationale for building bigger turbines is simple: longer blades harvest more energy from the wind. Siemens says the new turbine can generate 6 megawatts, enough to power 5500 households. That is 1000 times more energy per year than the firm’s first generation of wind turbines, which it built 30 years ago with rotor blades just 5 metres long. British homes may benefit more than most. The UK government is investing £75 billion in offshore power in the hope that it will generate more than a quarter of the nation’s electricity by 2020. Siemens expects the SWT-6.0-154 to play a part. It hopes to install 300 of these turbines in the waters around the UK in the coming years.
Joanna Carver
Photographer Siemens AG
17 November 00 Month 2012 | NewScientist | 27