Anniversary Newsletter Edition #2: The first wind turbine branded Nordex
Today, we take the time again to look back on 40 years of our exciting company development with our Anniversary Newsletter Edition #2.
Just one year after Nordex was established 1985, the very first Nordex-branded turbine was installed in 1986: the N27. With its 250kW generator, it was the world’s most powerful turbine at that time. A light-wind version of the N27 with 150kW followed. Developed by the visionary brothers Carsten and Jens Pedersen and Nordex’s inaugural employee, Knud Buhl Nielsen, the N27 marked the beginning of a groundbreaking journey towards sustainable energy production.
Knud Buhl Nielsen and the N27 (pic Bert Wiklund)
Looking back on this milestone, Carsten Pedersen fondly recalls: “The first real Nordex turbine was the N27 with a rotor diameter of 27 meters, on a 30-meter tubular tower which we erected at our factory in 1986. At that time, it was one of the biggest turbines in the market and we thought that it was really big. We had to rent the tallest crane in Denmark to erect it.”
From today’s perspective, the whole development process in the early stages of Nordex seems truly adventurous: In the absence of a computer, the design was done by hand, and the loads were calculated using a pocket calculator.
However, it’s safe to say that both processes were conducted thoroughly and expertly. “The turbine actually kept running for 30 years, as we did not dismantle it until 2016,” remembers Jens Pedersen.
Looking back, based on the first steps with the N27 it seems that “thinking big” was beginning to be the natural approach at Nordex. Because just a further humble milestone was accomplished today: 30 years of producing turbines of the megawatt class. In 1995, Nordex introduced the worldwide first series- produced megawatt turbine, the N52 with one megawatt.
N27 is attracting interest from private investors, mostly farmers who want to build a wind turbine on their own land.
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Today, Nordex’s Delta4000 series boasts a rated power more than 45 times that of the N27, showcasing the remarkable advancements in technology and engineering expertise. Over the past 40 years, the rotor diameter has increased 6.5-fold, now reaching an impressive 175 meters, with its swept area increasing accordingly by a factor of 42. Today, Nordex’ wind turbines are manufactured with capacities ranging from 4 to 7 megawatts.