ECN research institute: Good Note for the N80

Hamburg, August 24, 2004. The Dutch research institute ECN (Energy research Centre of the Netherlands) is satisfied with the performance of its five N80/2500 kW wind turbines on their test site at the Wieringermeer. „Up to now the N80 turbines on our site show a good performance, and meet our expectations“, so Wim Stam, Managing Director of the test site organisation in a first interim result.



In spring 2004 Nordex installed the five multi-megawatt turbines, which have been handed over to the customer after 1,500 hours of operation. ECN uses the turbines for intensive testing in order to support research and development programmes. In these programmes items as wake effects, control strategies and energy yield optimization are being addressed. „The Nordex monitoring system works well and gives us useful information about the status and performance of the turbines. We have to analyse the accuracy of availability data and energy production. In general terms wind turbine manufacturers have the tendency to overestimate both types of data somewhat. Based on our results to date Nordex could be an exception“, says Stam.



Nordex also benefits from the results of these tests. All improvements and suggestions based on the research at ECN will be directly incorporated into the development of the N80/N90 product family. This interest in the R&D measurements and Nordex’ willingness to allow them under full guarantee were important reasons for ECN, to choose Nordex last year as its supplier from amongst six manufacturers.