In this interview, AZoCleantech talks to Enercon at Contamination Expo Series about their fast changing wind turbine solutions.
Tell us about your company and why you are here today?
Enercon is a German-based company founded in 1984 by a researcher. We've been in the market since then as a self-owned company and in the UK for the last twenty-one years. We have almost 900 wind turbines installed, which is more or less 1.5 gigawatts, but the market is changing here in the UK. Some cities are making cuts
Since the last few years, Enercon have been working on clients that are field testing, such as farmers and land owners. This means there is only one turbine per site. The future is the new sea of peace with offshore and remote islands, which is what we're working on.
Besides that, we're looking into the fast-charging systems that can charge an electric car in more or less seven to ten minutes. Here, everything is about integrated energy systems and that's what we're looking into in the UK market, particularly on islands. We don't know what's going to happen after Brexit, but we're probably going to be more insulated in terms of where we can get our energy from, so that's about what we're looking to.
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What sets you apart from any other turbine provider on the market?
Normally I give this example; we're the Apple of the onshore wind sector. It's a very close system, almost like the IOS. We manufacture the wind turbines so we have all types of factories. 80% of all of our components are made in-house, so we don't have sub-contractors. 90% is European; only a small part of 10% comes from other parts of the world. Secondly, the technology is direct drive. It's also very wind-friendly because it creates what they call 'reactive power', which helps the grid based on the problem the grid has.
The Apple is a bit more expensive, and so are we. However, with our technology we try to add value to the product. Knowing that subsidies are being cut all over Europe, we have this new platform called the EP3 platform. We redesigned our wind turbine with the object to reduce costs and be more accessible in terms of being more competitive in the market. We're still the Apple of the onshore wind center.
To find out more please visit https://www.enercon.de/en/home/