Spanish firm Nabrawind Technologies is set to develop a major wind farm in Morocco which Upon completion will become Africa’s tallest wind farm tower with a hub height of 144 metres.
The tower committed by Nabrawind has a rated power of 3.6MW and its installation will begin almost immediately. Specifically, the foundation will begin this summer, while the rest of the installation will take place at the end of this year and the beginning of the next.
This is the first Nabralift firm order for Nabrawind. This tower allows the installation of a full WTG (tower, nacelle, rotor) without using large-size cranes regardless of the final hub-height thanks to the Self-erecting System (SES).
The SES is conceived to install the lowermost sections of the tower at the last part of the assembly process. For this purpose, the SES is able to hoist the WTG in intermediate stages and install tower sections under it.
The other innovative aspect of Nabralifit is its piled foundation. Unlike the gravitational foundation, which for a tower of this type would require 500m3 of concrete and 60 tons of steel, Nabralift’s piled foundation requires only 80m3 of concrete and 10 tons of steel. This makes this option 60% cheaper than the traditional one.
With this sale, the company from Navarre (Spain) takes part of the current trend in the wind market, which is moving towards the installation of higher and more powerful wind turbines in the range of 3.5MW-5.5MW.
To date, the largest wind turbine in Africa was in South Africa, a 115 meters tower installed by Siemens Gamesa.
In fact, the structure that Nabrawind will install in Morocco will not only become Africa’s tallest wind farm tower but also become one of the world’s tallest. The current world record is held by a 178-metre tower installed in Germany.
Nabrawind has, in fact, the third tallest tower in the world, which was installed in Eslava (Navarra) last summer with a hub height of 160 meters.
The company is currently in negotiations with several of the most important companies in the sector for the installation of its Nabralift towers in new wind projects distributed all over the world.
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