EROI of 35 claimed for new wind turbine

Press release – Wind turbines – a great advantage to the environment

A V90-3.0 MW offshore wind turbine has to produce electricity for just 6.8 months, before it has produced as much energy as used throughout its design lifetime. In other words this turbine model earns its own worth more than 35 times during its design lifetime.
Press release – Wind turbines – a great advantage to the environment
A V90-3.0 MW offshore wind turbine has to produce electricity for just 6.8 months, before it has produced as much energy as used throughout its design lifetime. In other words this turbine model earns its own worth more than 35 times during its design lifetime.

Furthermore, compared to the V80-2.0 MW offshore wind turbine, the 6.8 months constitutes an improvement of approximately 2.2 months.

If installed on a good site, the V90-3.0 MW wind turbine will generate approximately 280,000 MWh in 20 years – thus sparing the environment the impact of a net volume of approximately 230,000 tons of CO2, as compared to the figures for energy generated by a coal-fired power station.

The above-mentioned are two of the results from a life cycle assessment (LCA), which Vestas completed of a V90-3.0 MW wind turbine in 2004. The calculations prove the environmental advantages of Vestas turbines also when taking the whole life cycle into consideration.

A life cycle assessment is both a mapping and an evaluation of the potential impact of the wind turbine on the external environment throughout its lifetime. The life cycle assessment for the V90-3.0 MW wind turbine is divided into four phases.

The production phase, which covers the period from obtaining the raw materials to the completion of the wind turbine
Transport of the wind turbine components and erection of the wind turbine
Operation and maintenance throughout the 20-year design lifetime of the wind turbine
Disposal of the wind turbine.
Svend Sigaard, President and CEO of Vestas Wind Systems A/S, finds that the positive results reflect that Vestas lives up to its goal of improving both the competitiveness and the environmentally friendliness of the wind turbines.