Wind Energy, one of the cleanest sources of renewable energy is being harnessed with prime importance all over the world. Wind energy is being relied upon by residential and commercial purposes. To meet the global needs of wind energy, it is required to harness it with improved efficiency. For this, it is required to install wind turbines with greater heights. Taller the towers, larger is the rotor diameter and hence more power production.
Taller towers necessitate sections of base diameters greater than 4.3m. This poses a problem for the transportation of the steel sections of the tower. Steel is one of the prime carbon emitting materials as its manufacturing require smelting of coal. There are certain moves to develop more emission-friendly steel plant, but none is close to commercialization.
To address the above issues, we must think about an alternate system for the turbine towers. Concrete come as a replacement of steel towers and have been used over several years. There are many advantages of concrete towers as in they are cheaper than steel, they are bulkier and hence can accommodate the frequency range of a stiff-stiff category. The disadvantage is that they require large volume of concrete for their construction and pose a threat by emitting CO2 to the environment.
The concept of Space Frame Concrete tower comes in handy to answer the emission, construction, and financial conditions. The aim of this design was to achieve a substantial saving in cost by replacing the steel tubular portion with a concrete frame.
It is well known that the lattice steel tower wind turbine is one of the most efficient and economic turbine towers except for the fact that it needs periodical maintenance for tightening of the bolts, also the joints of which are susceptible to corrosion. We at NeXHS, propose a similar concept of lattice tower using concrete. This eliminates the maintenance cost and the corrosion problem of the lattice steel tower. The space frame concrete tower is an open structure similar to that of the lattice steel tower hence greater saving of material is achieved.
The emission problem is also addressed by reduction in usage of the concrete and by using green concrete i.e., by replacing the cement with fly ash and other industrial waste material. The space frame concrete tower is entirely constructed by precast segments and assembled using necessary joints. It is to be erected by an exclusive method of SELF CLIMBING TECHNOLOGY. This self-climbing technology eliminates the usage of a tower crane and reduces the cost of erection to a substantial extent.
The Space frame concrete tower can be constructed to colossal heights thereby removing the hurdles in wind energy production. This is built and erected in a reduced cost compared to that of the conventional steel tower and hence can lower the cost of power per unit. The Space Frame Concrete Tower is susceptible to become the industry standard in the near future.
