Keystone Tower Systems and GE Renewable Energy recently unveiled the world's first spiral-welded tower on a 2.8 MW GE turbine, marking a significant turning point in the development of tapered spiral welding, as per a press release.
The installation is the outcome of Keystone and GE's multi-year partnership to develop spiral-welded tower designs and manufacturing processes for GE wind turbines.
Spiral-welded Tower
The tower was created in Pampa, Texas, where Keystone maintains a manufacturing facility. The region will eventually gain back around 200 manufacturing jobs as a result of the brownfield factory, which was constructed in an abandoned facility where drilling equipment for the oil and gas industry was once produced.
The plant will be able to produce roughly 1GW of towers annually when operating at full capacity. This expansion of local manufacturing capacity is occurring at a crucial moment as demand for wind turbine components has significantly increased with the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act.
With its tapered spiral welding method, Keystone gives the production of wind towers the efficiency, dependability, and speed of automated manufacturing.
Coil steel will be used in the manufacturing process, allowing a new group of highly effective local steel mills to supply the wind sector.
As described in the US Department of Energy paper "How Spiral Welding is Revolutionizing Wind Turbine Production" from May 2022, the factory is in a fixed place, but Keystone is also creating mobile factories that can construct bigger towers directly at the wind site.
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"Culmination of a Dream"
TÜV NOR, a certification company headquartered in Hanover, Germany, has certified the spiral tower's components for a 40-year lifespan.
In addition, Keystone and GE worked together to design a tower for GE's 3MW turbine platform and inked a multi-year supply contract for spiral towers made at Keystone's Pampa factory.
"This is the culmination of a dream we had to bring advanced manufacturing to the tower industry to help drive down the cost of wind energy and expand where wind is competitive into new regions," Eric Smith, Keystone's co-founder, and CTO, said in a statement.
"This collaboration with Keystone is an example of GE's commitment to working with partners to bring new and innovative technology to the wind industry and advance domestic manufacturing," Vic Abate, GE Renewable Energy's CEO, Onshore Wind, remarked.
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