TimberTower Sees Wood in Future of Wind Turbines

Okay, so this green story is a bit retro in that didn’t wind turbines (wind mills) used to be built out of wood? Well, now the towering steel behemoths that speckle the plains like tamed Transformers are taking a new direction thanks to a company called TimberTower.

The German wind turbine company has produced a large commercial turbine made out of wood that can power 1,000 homes. According to the Christian Science Monitor, “They have created the technology to build wooden wind turbine towers that can be as tall as 200 metres. The towers are hollow, multi-faceted structures which are developed using ecologically sourced, PERC certified wood.

“A test turbine is currently in place in Hannover, and uses a 1.5 MW Vensys wind turbine to generate sufficient electricity to power 1,000 homes.”

But wait, there’s more (with homage to Steven Jobs). According to the German wind turbine maker themselves, “’The TimberTower is a milestone on the way to green energy production because we use 99% renewable resources’, says Holger Giebel, Managing Director of TimberTower. Now there will be a test run but the turbine will supply current by the end of 2012. Meanwhile TimberTower develops a 140m tower.”

So, in other words, the old wooden windmill that pumped water on my grandfather’s farm is now back in vogue. The TimberTower wind turbines are made from locally sourced wood which is cheaper and easier to transport than steel, plus the renewable energy that is made from the device is built from renewable resources. It’s hard to throw a stone and find something greener than this.