Taking advantage of the windy shores of Ohio, global welding manufacturer Lincoln Electric is considering setting up a giant wind turbine at its US headquarters in Euclid. Lincoln ordered the 443-foot-tall, 2.5 megawatt wind turbine from a German turbine manufacturer Kenersys Europe GmbH and plans to begin assembling it on an enormous tower in May.
This will be the largest wind turbine in Ohio and one of the largest in North America. To construct the 14-foot diameter steel tower to support the turbine, Lincoln will take the help of a giant robotic welding machine that the company sells all over the world.
Extending support to the Great Lakes Energy Development Task Force’s campaign, Lincoln ordered the monster 200,000-pound wind-powered generator, last fall. The vision of the Great Lakes Energy Development Task Force is to establish the Cuyahoga region as the hub for a wind energy cluster and capture a large portion of the future economic potential in research and manufacturing.
As the three enormous wind turbine blades from Europe were offloaded at the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority on Monday, County Executive Ed FitzGerald said:
This is an important symbolic moment and a substantive moment. It shows we are serious about supporting this emerging industry. We want Greater Cleveland to be on the cutting edge of the renewable energy sector. And we want to do everything we can to promote the Port of Cleveland.
Lauding the efforts, chairman of the task force and county prosecutor William Mason stated:
The task force has been aggressively pursuing Kenersys for more than 21/2 years. We believe that Kenersys has the expertise and shares our vision for making this region a center for wind energy in North America.
The seven sections of the mammoth tower weld together will weigh 435,461 pounds and reach 266 feet into the air while each of the turbine’s three 159-foot-long sculptured blades weighs more than 24,000 pounds. Lincoln has already poured nearly 600 cubic yards of concrete and 65 tons of steel reinforcing bars, called rebar, to fabricate the reinforced concrete foundation.
The turbine will also save Lincoln a colossal annual electric bill of $500,000 by generating 2-1/2 million watts (2.5 megawatts) at a wind speed of 27 miles per hour by spinning at just 14 rotations per minute.
The turbine and installation cost of about $5.9 million will be met by Lincoln by financing $4.55 million from its own kitty, in addition to taking a loan of $350,000 from the county and receiving a $1 million federal stimulus grant.
