A WIND farm near Lüderitz is using pioneering self-erecting technology to build turbines without heavy cranes, significantly reducing costs and wind-related installation delays.
InnoVent’s Diaz wind farm made use of Spanish engineering company Nabrawind’s Skylift technology to build the turbine.
“The turbine essentially builds itself upward from the ground,” InnoVent executive director for southern Africa Tom Torne says.
The traditional way of building wind turbines requires cranes to stack sections on top of each other.
“A self-erecting system lifts the components from the ground and progressively assembles the tower section by section, without the need for a large crane.
The blades are then installed using Nabrawind’s BladeRunner technology, which also requires no heavy crane,” Torne says.
Traditional wind turbine building methods require massive cranes that are not locally available.
In addition, installations must stop when wind speeds are high.
“This approach is particularly well suited to the Lüdertiz area. The region’s famous winds – one of its greatest assets for energy production – are also one of its greatest construction challenges,” Torne says.
“Technologies like Skylift reduce dependence on heavy equipment that isn’t available locally, cut construction delays caused by high winds, and ultimately make wind projects more viable across Namibia’s remote but wind-rich coastline.”
This is also the first commercial demonstration of the Skylift system anywhere in the world, he says.
Construction on the InnoVent Diaz wind farm began in 2023 and is expected to produce 230 GWh per year.
It is currently in the final stages of construction, with five of the planned 11 turbines already assembled.
The company expects to commission the project in August.
InnoVent, through its subsidiary InnoSun, also built the Ombepo wind farm outside Lüderitz, which was commissioned in 2017.
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