Will bigger wind turbines help Europe reach its clean energy goals?

Bigger is not always better when it comes to wind turbines, the CEO of ZF Wind Power, Felix Henseler, told Euronews.

In its commitment to protecting the environment, ZF Wind Power is leading the charge in European wind-power generation. Together with its partners, it builds the gearboxes, essential to powering wind turbines.

"From a general or logistical or design point of view, it's not a problem to produce bigger. This is a 7.2 MW machine and to go higher up to 15 or even 18 MW, that’s not a problem at all from a technology point of view," said Henseler referring to the machines at ZF's factory in Lommel.

"But we have to keep it on this level to industrialise it, to optimise the processes, to avoid all the mistakes which might be in, make sure everything is correct in terms of quality, to reduce the production costs, to reduce the quality costs, the failure costs etc.

"So, therefore, we are, at the moment, voting to keep at this level for now, because these are big machines, so they are highly efficient, they are high-tech machines, it's perfectly made for the next decade, to run and to reach our targets. There is not really a need for a bigger machine, not here onshore - this is an onshore version, or not even offshore," he concluded.

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