Swedish company continues building wind turbines from wood, allowing them to be taller

In Sweden, builders are continuing to experiment with a new material for wind turbines, making the towers that support them out of wood. Modvion recently completed the tallest wooden wind turbine to date near Gothenburg, with its fiberglass blades reaching a height of 150 meters. The company’s owners say the technology can be used to build even taller towers, making better use of wind energy, as the wind blows more strongly at higher altitudes, the BBC reported.

Steel is the standard material for building wind turbine towers, but making them taller would pose a problem, particularly in terms of logistics. Towers are built from enormous sections that need to be transported to the site, which is already far from straightforward because of the dimensions of tunnels, roads and bridges. If the sections were even larger, transporting them would be virtually impossible.

The technology of building with prefabricated wooden sections is simpler, especially because it allows construction from smaller parts that are easy to transport. The sections are made from as many as 144 layers of veneer, making the panels extremely durable but also flexible. „It’s our secret recipe… And because wood is lighter (than steel), it is possible to build taller turbines using less material,“ said David Olivegren, one of the co-founders of Modvion.

Investors in Modvion include Vestas, one of the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturers. „We find it interesting because it is an economically viable solution that addresses transportation challenges while also being sustainable,“ said its representative, Jan Hagen.