World’s Longest Wind Turbine Blades Transported to Scotland

The blades from Danish SSP Technology will be installed on a 7 MW test offshore turbine for Samsung Heavy Industries’ first offshore wind energy project, targeted to start in 2015.

With a length of 83.5 m and a rotor diameter of 171.2 m, each wind turbine blade weighs 30 tonnes. The 7MW wind turbine equipped with the three SSP Technology blades can, in a matter of just 30 minutes, produce the same amount of energy equivalent to the annual energy consumption of an average family.

Transportation of blades
The root diameter of the blades is only 4.2 meters, which makes it ideal to facilitate smooth road transportation. The blades are transported on heavy load trucks from SSP Technology’s production site in the southern part of Funen, Denmark. In the port of Esbjerg on the Danish west coast, the blades are loaded onto special vessels for the sea transport to the installation site of the Scottish coast.

Close cooperation between SSP Technology and Samsung Heavy Industries
Engineers from Samsung Heavy Industries joined SSP Technology’s design office for multiple months in the initial design phase and also followed the onsite the manufacturing process closely at SSP Technology’s factory. SSP Technology’s engineers and factory managers will through a technology transfer process assist SHI in starting up the serial blade production in Korea using the mould set developed and delivered by SSP Technology.

SSP Technology has in partnership and co-operation with SHI 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 timespan, 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.

Source: SSP Technology