Towards a Significant CoE Reduction
The auction system is leading to reductions in the price of energy worldwide. At present every competitor involved in the sector is focusing on maximising energy production while trying to minimise the investment needed for this purpose. One of the trends is the use of higher towers and more powerful turbines. This leads to an increase of foundation loads, and hence higher volumes of concrete on regular shallow slab foundations. Nowadays values around 400–450 cubic metres of concrete per wind turbine generator (WTG) foundation are common and therefore efforts are being made to reduce both this concrete volume and the amount of reinforcing steel in the WTG foundations. So far, most of the innovative solutions have not had a significant penetration into the market since although there were material savings there were also much higher execution costs as well as longer construction schedules.
By Ramón López Mendizabal, Esteyco Energía, Spain
