Adventioneering

If Adventioneering is a cross between adventure and engineering, then today’s motorcycle ride certainly qualifies. I combined trying new roads on my bike (adventure) with work (engineering) related photography.

A few years back Siemens bought Danish wind turbine manufacturer Bonus, and started really bringing the Bonus turbine designs to the US market with the 2.3 megawatt SWT-2.3-93 (Siemens Wind Turbine, 2.3 MW, 93m rotor). Hundreds of this model of turbine have been installed in US wind projects, and it is generally considered to be a robust and reliable machine.

Over the past 18 months or so, Siemens has been actively trying to sell an updated version of this machine to several of my clients. This new model, the SWT-2.3-101 (Siemens Wind Turbine, 2.3 MW, 101m rotor), is almost identical to the previous model, except for the larger rotor. The only significant changes appear to be longer blades, a larger hub to accommodate the increased blade root diameter, and a revised pitch system.

To date there are only a few machines of this configuration installed, although several hundred megawatts are expected to be operational by year end. One of those few is at the National Wind Technology Center off of highway 93 between Boulder and Golden. I live in Denver, so I decided today to go take a look.

The weather was fine today, so I took the motorcycle to have some adventure time too. I haven’t had much chance to ride yet this year. I threw my camera and binoculars in the tank bag and went northwest by I-25 and US-6 to highway 93.

Sadly I was not an authorized personnel, so I couldn’t go right up to the machine. Instead I took a few photos from the entrance of the NREL site and from off of 93. When the wind isn’t blowing the turbine is kind of funny looking because of how far away from the tower the blades angle (they bend toward the tower in the wind). You can’t really learn much about wind technology from the exterior appearance of a machine, but it was fun anyways.