It has not become a whole wind turbine. But very few people have even seen the inside of a wind nacelle. And certainly nobody has a “wind tree” in their garden! When it comes to wind power, Phoenix Contact is at the forefront. Which is impressively demonstrated in the park.
Carsten Schröder taps almost lovingly against the large, white egg, which is one of the particularly eye-catching exhibits in the All Electric Society Park: “Our nacelle was a real stroke of luck!” The 49-year-old industrial engineer works in the field of renewable energies for solar and wind marketing. And was involved almost from the very beginning when it came to giving wind power its rightful place.
“It was clear from the start that we wanted to exhibit a wind nacelle. There was no space for an entire wind turbine generator and the distance to the production buildings was far too small. So a nacelle, in which we are also well represented with our products.” Sounds simple enough, but as Schröder explains, it wasn’t that easy to get hold of the egg-shaped exhibit: “Normally, old windmills are sold on before they are dismantled. After all, the turbines that are decommissioned here are technically still completely intact. In countries where the technology is not as advanced, windmills often continue to run for decades.”
Ground contact
But the Phoenix Contact wind team has the best contacts in the industry. And Carsten Schröder has patience on the phone. “Time was of the essence, because not only did we have to get a nacelle, but it also had to fit into the tight spaces here in the park and be modified by us accordingly.” The industry giant Enercon finally came up with the perfect solution. “In Aurich, there was actually an old E33 on the open-air site behind the production halls. Normally it is enthroned on 60 to 80 meter high towers, but this turbine was intended to serve as a spare parts carrier for operators who still use such old windmills.”
So we had to be quick and make the purchase perfect. Enercon took care of the necessary cleaning and refurbishment of the shell. However, this was not the last stumbling block: “The original nacelle was actually too short. So the steel fabricator, who also built the solar trackers, welded in a special middle section. And formed a steel inner skeleton, because the GRP shell alone would not have been stable enough. This was done in the steel fabricator’s production facility. So it was very exciting when the individual parts were delivered and the puzzle was assembled. But then everything fell into place.” The slightly elongated gondola was given a stable foundation and a steel staircase. Normally, a gondola like this is climbed from below via the tower, but visitors did not want to have to do that. Today, audiovisual technology helps visitors to get a feel for the “real” location high up among the clouds.
Tree former
The wind power experts at Phoenix Contact don’t just have their heads up high. With the Wind Tree, they want to show that innovative and, above all, smaller objects are also able to make their contribution to an All Electric Society. The inventors of the Wind Tree are Frenchmen Jérome Michel-Lariviére and Luc Eric Krief. The two creative minds put together small, upright and virtually silent mini-turbines to create true works of art. The one-meter-high turbines are called Aero Leafs. Luc Eric Krief and his company New World Wind have been working to spread this idea worldwide since 2017. With success: one of the sensational wind trees has been standing on the Place de la Concorde in Paris for years, and there are more than 40 of these energetic works of art in France alone.
“But it’s not just art,” smiles Carsten Schröder. “For one thing, the Aero Leafs start generating electricity even in light winds. And secondly, our wind tree can generate up to 10.8 kW. That’s enough for a normal two-person household. This energy is fed directly into our energy center in the visitor pavilion and makes a substantial contribution to its energy supply.”
The wind tree shows that not only can solar energy be captured on many surfaces, but that wind also offers innovative solutions.
“We are showing so many things here that are not only technically possible, but already work. And which, given the necessary know-how, can also be sensibly combined to form a whole. That’s the fascinating thing. And the technology is developing rapidly. I am firmly convinced that we have created a window here that shows how we can manage without fossil fuels today. That’s encouraging.”
