Newcomers to the German wind market have become rare. While there were still around three dozen suppliers in the early 1990s, the business is now spread among more or less half a dozen so-called OEMs. Market consolidation is the euphemism. That's why the situation was nothing new for Markus Becker at the "Wind Energy Days NRW" in Bad Driburg in mid-November: leading wind turbine manufacturers in this country presented their new flagships, with 6 megawatts and more of generator power and a rotor diameter of 175 meters. "Not our league," says the managing director of Windwise GmbH from Münster, "against these giants, we look like dwarfs with our concept."

But this is true: The "Maxcap turbine" developed by the Westphalian engineering firm only has an output of 2.3 MW and a rotor diameter of 141 meters. Windwise is not a classic manufacturer, but a developer forge that tries to bring new concepts to the market via licenses.

windwise deliberately relies on the concept "less power is more". Becker and his nearly two dozen colleagues know what they are doing. All of them have been active in wind technology for more than two decades. Becker himself, a graduate engineer, was in charge of developing the platform for the 1.5 MW machine, the world's best-selling turbine in its size class, for the GE Group. He later managed the development team at the Indo-German wind turbine manufacturer Kenersys, which ceased its activities in Germany in 2014.

"Even back in the Kenersys days, the idea was born for a turbine that didn't always focus on adding more power and taller towers," Becker says. Windwise's philosophy for the "Maxcap turbine" is in the little word "base load optimization." That's because the turbine is designed to make better use of on-site grid capacity; shutdowns by the grid operator should be a rarity.

Managing Director Becker explains the economic advantages: "For us, it is not the strong wind periods that are interesting, when the bulk of the wind turbines running in this country significantly depress electricity prices as a result of tens of millions of kilowatt hours fed into the grid and shutdowns are imminent, but rather lower and medium wind speeds". The bottom line is that the capacity factor of the new turbine, a crucial efficiency parameter in wind technology, is over 40 percent - which is comparable to the level of offshore wind machines.

Deshalb eignet sich die neue Windturbine made in Westfalen nach Worten von Markus Becker neben der Optimierung bestehender Windparks – sofern Flächen und Abstände es zu lassen – vor allem für die Eigenstromerzeugung von mittelständischen Industrie- und Gewerbebetrieben: „Abhängig vom Standort lassen sich mit der Maxcap-Anlage jährlich zwischen 7 und 11 Millionen kWh erzeugen, was schon eine Hausnummer ist.“

The development of the prototype was made possible by European funding from the ERDF program and money from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The nacelle itself has already been extensively tested in the laboratory of the Center for Windpower Drives at RWTH Aachen University. The Westphalians want to start the test to see whether all their calculations are correct next summer. The prototype will then finally be erected in Lienen between Münster and Osnabrück.

Bentec Drilling & Oilfield Systems from Bad Bentheim, a subsidiary of the Scottish KCA-Deutag Group, which in turn is a major player in the international oil and gas industry, has acquired the first license for the new low-wind turbine. The two companies have since agreed a long-term technology partnership that will enable Bentec to establish itself as a wind turbine manufacturer in Germany and abroad.

Dirk Bäumker, who is responsible for this new business field at Bentec, explains the entry into wind power to EID as follows: "We will follow the path of the energy transition and have expanded our product portfolio by developing a battery storage system and an electrolyzer ourselves. In the future, through the cooperation with Windwise, we will additionally include the wind turbine in our sales portfolio together with our products as a total solution as well as an individual product." In the overall package, the battery storage system and the electrolyzer could be operated "excellently" with the electricity from the maxcap wind turbine.

However, Bäumker is silent on the targeted sales figure. In the sales business, Bentec not only wants to benefit from its worldwide network, but is also setting a meteorological focus: "We will concentrate on regions with low wind conditions, i.e. average annual wind speeds of less than 6.5 meters per second. Such regions include, for example, the Sultanate of Oman or the United Arab Emirates," says Bäumker, hinting at the first sales countries where there is also - surely no coincidence - plenty of oil.

The windwise crew in Münster does not want to leave it at the first license: "We have come to stay with our concept," emphasizes Managing Director Markus Becker confidently.