WindForge
Offshore Scale for Onshore Turbines
Introduction
WindForge is a project that aims to build a mobile factory that can build blades for wind turbines on the sites at which they will be installed. The purpose of the project is to solve the problem of shipping wind turbine blades which is currently expensive, time-consuming to organize, and dramatically reduces the economical power generation capacities of onshore wind farms.
Problem
When it comes to wind turbines, bigger is better. Modern offshore wind turbines are reaching blade lengths over 100 meters and producing huge amounts of electricity by doing so, but onshore wind installations can't do that. Beyond a certain length, you can't just put the wind turbine blade on the back of a semi-truck and send it down an American highway. This caps the length of wind turbine blades for onshore installations, and decreases the electric generation capacity that can be installed at a given site for a given amount of upfront investment.
Opportunity
We are developing a novel manufacturing process to create wind turbine blades in a mobile factory that can be deployed in standard-sized shipping containers, allowing us to make offshore-scale blades that can be used in onshore installations. Our technology allows wind energy developers to entirely bypass the expensive, time-consuming, and project-limiting problem of organizing shipping logistics for wind turbine blades, improving the ROI of wind farms and accelerating the green energy transition to fight climate change.