DeWind targets GE's home turf

It's a relatively small company that's relatively unheard of in North America.

But gutsy wind developer DeWind plans to change that.

DeWind thinks it's built a better wind turbine—and today announced third party validation that the new design of its D8.2 turbine, considered somewhat unorthodox in the industry, is indeed sound.

DeWind has some 570 turbines in the field, mostly in its home country Germany. Its ownership passed through a series of English companies, but for the last year, it's been part of Composite Technology Corporation (BULLETIN BOARD: CPTC) of Irvine, California.

It was a good day to own CTC. Its shares were up over 22 percent to $1.81 today on news that the 50 Hz version of DeWind's D8.2 wind turbine had been certified by Germany's DEWI-Offshore and Certification Centre GmbH (DEWI-OCC).

An incredible photo of DeWind's turbine >>

Other turbines are bigger—for instance, wind giant General Electric (NYSE: GE) has 2.5 and 3.6 MW devices, compared to the 2 MW of DeWind's 8.2 model—but DeWind believes its simpler and more robust design will give it strategic advantage.

"When we talk with various wind farm operators, approximately half of all issues stem from power conversion electronics, which this new 8.2 will not have," Benton Wilcoxon, Composite Technology Corporation chairman and CEO, told the Cleantech Group.

"We will be able to show we have a more reliable and less maintenance prone turbine."

Conventional turbines today use complicated gearboxes and electronics to account for electrical current frequency variations because of variations in wind speed. Massive inverters at the base of the towers convert the power to D.C., and to fixed frequency A.C. Further, the power must still be sent through step-up transformers before it can be added to the grid.

"It's complicated and inefficient because of energy losses at each step. And [this equipment] is about 50 percent of a wind farm's turbine problems," said Wilcoxon.

By contrast, the D8.2 utilizes a hydrodynamic torque converter developed by Voith AG with a synchronous A.C. generator, effectively a variable speed transmission, that is able to connect directly to the grid at high voltage. No complicated power conversion electronics are required, the company claims.

To critics who wonder how proven the new approach is, Wilcoxon claims the mechanism is the same one used in Voith's huge gas compressors, where it has demonstrated a 39-year mean time before failure (MTBF), twice the life expectancy of an average wind turbine.

Further, DeWind claims to use superior gearboxes.

"[Others'] gearboxes have been having problems, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Their average gearbox life has been 18 months. We've run ours for five years without problems," said Wilcoxon.

DeWind has developed and sold 50 Hz models of its D8 turbines around the world since 2002 (for instance, see DeWind receives order for D8 wind turbines.)

But it says it had been locked out of the 60 Hz North American market—until now—because sweeping patents owned by General Electric in the U.S. and Canada on conventional wind turbine electronics.

Given DeWind's new approach, those limitations no longer apply, it said.

The first new D8.2 60 Hz turbines delivered to North American customers will be built at partner TECO Westinghouse Motor Company in Texas, where a 50-person crew will be initially capable of producing one turbine per day, according to CTC CEO Wilcoxon.

CTC won't yet say where its first turbines in U.S. will be located, but says it's in negotiations with several customers and will make an announcement shortly.

In addition to General Electric, which declined to participate in this story, DeWind competes with turbine makers Vestas, Gamesa Eolica and Suzlon.

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