GE Vernova’s Vic Abate: ‘The world needs 400 new wind turbines a week’

Speaking to the Wind Power podcast at the WindEurope conference in Bilbao earlier this year, Abate set out the scale of the challenge to meet challenging installation targets set by countries around the world.

Abate told the podcast how he had met workers at the company’s turbine factory in Schenectady, New York, where they are currently producing around 100 6MW turbines per year, with the intention to produce 200 next year.

He praised their efforts but added: “I told the team; the world needs 400 [turbines] a week, for the next 20 years, so we just have to be great at producing this technology at scale.

Haliade-X ‘workhorse’ plans

The CEO also discussed the company’s Haliade-X ‘workhorse’ turbine – which features a 250-metre rotor – and some of the underlying principles behind the design.

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Now listen: GE Vernova’s Vic Abate on the Haliade-X, AI and the US elections

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The future success of offshore wind is going to be less about individual projects and more about deploying technology at scale, he said.

Abate said the company had decided that the best way to add value for its customers was to introduce a turbine with a 250-metre rotor.

He added: “We’re going to apply it in a way that the…conditions are very similar to a 220-metre [rotor], so the rotational speed, the tip speed, the duty cycle that that rotor is going to see out in the ocean is going to be proven with our 220-metre [version], because it’s going to cut through the wind at the same velocity.”

Listen to the full interview with Vic Abate in the link above.