Over the last 2 years, 750 wind turbines have been taking advantage of CTE Wind’s Soft-spot® solution. In Spain, three projects use the inventive design solution and in the Netherlands, the Zuidenwind wind farm have recently finished the installation.
Chief executive Alexander Martin said, «Our design provides interesting advantages and cost saving in material consumption and civil works while being easy to be built».
In over 50 wind farms around the globe, 750 wind turbines are using this resource saving solution which was introduced a while ago by CTE Wind. Even in the Netherlands where the soil consists of unconsolidated, very young sediments and pile foundations are mandatory for wind turbines because of the concentrated forces occurring on little surface area.
The foundation design optimises the use of resources, helps to save up to 15 % of concrete and 5 to 7 % of reinforcement steel and requires less surface for the foundation itself. This reduces the time, material and excavation costs. The Zuidewind project achieved 1.1m smaller outer wid turbine foundation diameters when compared to a typical foundation design and this resulted in a reduction of 100m3 of reinforced concrete and rebars.
CTE WIND (a member of the RAWI) is an international engineering and consulting firm headquartered in France, founded in 2003. The company specialises in the analysis and design of foundations for onshore wind turbines, a team of 30 engineers working around the world.