The sector has found in concrete towers a feasible solution.
Important advantages of this kind of towers are the easy to transport segments (pre-manufactured) and the high stiffness and strength that makes full-concrete tower more durable (~50 years vs. ~25 years) and less vibrant than steel. Moreover, full-concrete towers require less maintenance than steel ones (surface treatment, rescrew, etc.) and once it’s erected it is free-standing (it stands alone). Full-concrete towers will be feasible as well in off-shore applications.
But, once again, technical and economic constraints arise in crawler cranes of the tower concrete segments. Concrete segments weight 4 times more than the equivalent in steel and typical portions can be raised only up to 80-90 meters. To achieve greater heights- as 149 m.- hybrid towers have to be used, with a lower part made of concrete and an upper of steel.
It is in this context where the opportunity to develop a system that allows the installation of full-concrete towers without height limitation and at a cost well below the current systems arises.
The main objective of the project is to complete, qualify, standard setting and demonstrate in real working conditions a self-climbing telescopic crane (AIRCRANE) for the construction of full-concrete towers for wind turbines, at very low cost compared to current market solutions.
After that, the main business objective is to sale final erected full concrete towers to manufacturers of the wind turbines or OEM’s. In the whole world there are no more than 25 manufacturers, of which 10 are considered potential customers: Vestas (Denmark), GE+Alstom (General Electric, USA), Gamesa (Spain), Siemens (Germany), Enercon (Germany), Nordex+Acciona (Germany & Spain), Senvion (Germany), in offshore: Adwen (Gamesa+Areva, Spain, France & Germany), MHI (Vestas+Mitsubishi).
Thanks to AIRCRANE the building of those concrete towers will be much cheaper.
