Tuesday 2 August 2022

Breath of fresh air for old wind turbines – the Octopus’ way

A fresh breeze is set to be instilled into onshore wind farms across the UK.

Octopus has launched a new partnership with wind turbine manufacturer EWT to upgrade 1,000 old turbines of onshore wind farms.

After identifying these turbines in England, Scotland and Wales, partners plan to increase their capacity.

In the joint announcement, Octopus and EWT stated that the upgrade would mean these wind turbines will become more powerful with a range from 250kW to 1MW and tech-enabled.

Although the companies did not disclose more details about the process they will follow to make this happen, they said a wide range of solutions will be trialled depending on the characteristics of each individual site.

These measures include increasing the rotor diameter which could boost output by up to three times and replacement of the whole turbine.

The work is expected to start this autumn.

Zoisa North-Bond, Chief Executive Officer of Octopus Energy Generation, commented: "There’s a huge untapped opportunity to repower wind turbines that communities have already hosted for many years."

Carel Kok, Chief Executive Officer at EWT, said: "By working with Octopus to rapidly repower lots of older turbines in the UK, we will help bring online much more renewable capacity. Our powerful and tech-enabled turbines are the perfect ‘goldilocks’ solution for communities."