Swedish wind power

Press, 27 April 1981, Page 20

Swedish wind power

From the Swedish International Press Bureau, Stockholm

Construction work on the 75-metre-high concrete tower for a full-scale 2 MW wind turbine installation began on the Baltic island of Gotland in early March, reports the Swedish. State Power Board, the future operators. The Kr 62 million ($13,700,000) unit is designed for winds of 1 between 6 and 21 m/s and will generate some 6 million kWh annually. This is sufficient to cover electrical consumption in 600 electrically-heated homes or 1500 homes without such heating. The two 35-metre-long tur-

bine blades — now under construction in Germany — will be ready for installation early next ■ year and the turbine is scheduled to come into operation in the middle of 1982. The wind turbine will operate fully automatically with the aid of a micro-computer-based control system. The effects of the unit on the environment — sound levels, television interference, and bird life disturbances — will be closely followed.

An experimental, small-scale wind turbine has been in operation in east Sweden since 1977.

It produces some 60 kWh at full power and performance accords almost exactly with prior calculations. A second full-scale unit now being constructed for erection in south Sweden will have an output of 3 MW. The performance of all three units will be closely scrutinised in 1985. If the Riksdag (Parliament) decides to proceed with its wind power programme it is likely that some 25 units, aggregating 1000 MW, will be in operation by 1990, the State Power Board says.