Twelve wind turbines will come on stream by the end of 2014. Construction work on the Königshovener Höhe wind farm is in full swing, with the first wind turbine having been successfully installed today. In a first step, a lattice-boom crane hoisted the steel tower elements onto the concrete tower which had been completed before. Subsequently, the nacelle, which weighs a hundred tons and houses both gearbox and generator, was installed on top of the so-called hybrid tower at a height of 143 meters. In a last step the rotor star was mounted. The three rotor blades connected to the hub have a length of 57 meters each. The wind turbine has a total height of 200 meters and a capacity of 3.2 megawatts.
Project Manager Boris Ossadnik, RWE Innogy, explained: “We are fully on target. Construction work started in March and now we already have all foundations as well as ten concrete towers in place. With the installation of the first wind turbine completed in only two days, we are planning to install another one or two wind turbines each week. In parallel, the turbines will be connected to the grid and be successively taken into operation so that according to our current plans, all twelve wind turbines of the first construction stage will be ready to supply electricity by the end of the year.”
The wind farm which is being erected at a reclaimed site of the Garzweiler opencast mine will have an installed capacity of more than 38 megawatts. The electricity generated at this wind farm will be sufficient to supply an equivalent of 33,000 households per year with climate-friendly energy. The Königshovener Höhe wind farm is a joint-venture project of the city of Bedburg and RWE. The city holds a share of 49 per cent in the wind farm which is being developed by RWE.