GE Wind (offshore)
| Industry | Wind turbines |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | Alstom Wind (2010-2015) Alstom Ecotècnia (2007-2010) Ecotècnia S.c.c.l. (1981-2007) |
| Headquarters | Barcelona, Spain |
| Parent | General Electric |
GE Power's offshore wind subsidiary was acquired from Alstom in 2015 together with that company's other electrical power and generation assests.
Formerly known as Alstom Wind, originally Alstom Ecotècnia, the company was the wind power company of energy infrastructure company Alstom, within its 'Power' operating division, from 2010 to 2015. The company originated as Ecotècnia S.c.c.l., a Spanish wind power equipment manufacturing and installation company established in 1981, acquired by Alstom 2007 for €350 million.
The subsidiary's main product is the 6MW 'Haliade' offshore wind turbine.
Ecotècnia was a manufacturer and installer of wind turbines established in 1981, headquartered in Barcelona, Spain. In 1999 it became part of the Basque-based cooperative Mondragon Corporation.
The company's first wind generator was a 30 kW machine, developed by 1984 with funding assistance from the Spanish Science Ministry. In 1991 the company developed a 150 kW machine, and in 1992 won its first commercial project - for fifty 150 kW turbines at Tarifa, Spain. The particular demands of installing wind turbines in mountainous regions in Spain which included poor road access and blustery (high turbulence) conditions led to specific design features of Ecotècnia's turbines - including a modular construction of the turbine (three components: rotor and shaft; mainframe and yaw system; and the drive train - each less than 30t), as well as isolation of the gearbox from the main drive, reducing non-torque gearbox loads.
In 2005 the company's estimate world market share (by installed capacity) was 2.1%. By 2007 the company had installed over wind farms with over 1GW total of rate power; the company had increased the power output of its wind turbine offering from 30 kW in 1984 to 1.67MW by 2003.
In the first half of the 1990s the company installed wind farms using its ECO20 150 kW model, from 1995 to 2000 the company's primary models were the ECO44 (640 kW) and ECO48 (750 kW) models. After 2003 most of the company's installations used its 1.67MW IEC-1400-1 class II ECO74, and class IIIA ECO80, three blade turbine models; both typically used a mechanically isolated Winergy AG PEAB 4390.2 planetary gearbox driving a doubly fed induction generator (typically ABB, Siemens, Winergy sourced) with IGBT inverter control, driven by individually pitch controlled LM manufactured blades.
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