Jared Cohen
Imagine a wind turbine so tall it could touch the sky, and it’s made entirely of wood. That’s exactly what you’ll find near the town of Skara, just a stone’s throw away from Gothenburg in Sweden, a country famous for its flatpack wood furniture. This wooden giant, the world’s tallest wooden wind turbine, began its rotation last year.
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According to BBC News, the turbine’s 2-megawatt generator started spinning and feeding electricity into the local grid late last year, lighting up around 400 homes.
Wind power is a champion among energy sources, offering one of the lowest prices and most sustainable options. But it’s not without its drawbacks. Most turbines are made of steel, a robust metal that leaves a hefty carbon footprint. As turbines grow more powerful, they need larger towers, increasing the demand for this environmentally taxing metal.
Enter Modvion, a company that’s tackling this issue head-on. They’ve developed the “Wind Of Change,” the first commercial wooden wind turbine tower.
This innovative structure can be assembled on-site in seven sections, comprising a total of 28 modules. This modular design makes the tower easier to transport by road or sea, unlike traditional steel towers that can be bulky and difficult to move.
The walls of the turbine tower are constructed from 144 layers of 3-millimeter-thick laminated veneer lumber, glued and compressed together. The wood, sourced from around 200 sustainably farmed spruces (the same species used for Christmas trees), adds to the tower’s eco-friendly credentials.
“It’s our secret recipe,” says David Olivegren, co-founder of Modvion, former architect, and boat builder. “Wood and glue is the perfect combination, we’ve known that for hundreds of years. And because using wood is lighter [than steel] you can build taller turbines with less material,” he adds.
While this lone wooden wind tower in the Swedish countryside won’t single-handedly solve the global climate crisis, it’s a step in the right direction.
Modvion, however, sees this as just the beginning. They envision a future where they’re creating 100 wooden towers each year by 2027, potentially on an even grander scale.
“The potential height of a wooden tower is 1,500 meters [4,921 feet]. 150 [meters / 492 feet] seems like a good place to start,” Modvion states on its website.
This article was originally published in December 2023 and has been updated for freshness and accuracy.
