Siemens unveils wind turbine prototype

UPI
June 13, 2011

German manufacturer Siemens AG says it has deployed the first of its new generation of super-large wind turbines with an aim of improving their efficiency.

The company announced Friday it has deployed a prototype of its SWT-6.0-120 wind turbine at the offshore wind farm in Hovsore, Denmark, and is expecting big things from the direct-drive unit, which boasts a power rating of 6 megawatts and a rotor diameter of 393 feet.

The combined weight of its nacelle and rotor is less than 350 tons, which, the company says, sets "low-weight standard for large offshore machines."

The new turbine is aimed a solving a long-standing conundrum in wind technology -- the fact that the biggest offshore units are less-efficient than their smaller brethren as a measure of generating output by weight.
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