Wind and hydro join forces for symbiotic energy system

GE pilot project in Germany will feature giant wind-powered water towers

It’s been the perennial criticism of renewable energy systems—the wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine.

Conceptually speaking, the battery is the game changer. And in Germany, General Electric’s latest experiment looks an awful lot like H2O.

In recent weeks, GE announced it was building a symbiotic solution—a four-turbine wind farm in Germany’s Swabian-Franconian forest that also stores water for hydroelectricity.

The wind farm will store energy when the wind is blowing by pumping an estimated 1.6 million gallons water up inside each turbine’s base to a height of about 100 feet. And when the air is still, that water will flow downhill to a man-made lake in the valley below to generate hydroelectric power.

GE partnered with German outfit Max Boegl Wind AG on the pilot project, which is expected to connect to the grid by the end of 2017, with the hydropower plant following suit by the end of 2018.

“Germans in this area are known as tinkerers and inventors,” Cliff Harris, European general manager for onshore wind at GE Renewable Energy, tells GE Reports. “So the mentality of this technology really fits with the population.”

The turbines in this project will be the tallest in the world, at 584 feet high with blades pointing straight up, and will each be placed in a reservoir holding nine million gallons of water, on top of the 1.6 million in the base. The reservoirs can also hold salt water, meaning these projects can be built in coastal areas.

It’s expected that the wind farm will produce 13.6 megawatts of green energy, while the hydroelectric plant will be capable of 16 MW more.

Germany is aiming for 45 percent of its energy to be sourced from renewables by 2030.

“It’s a bit risky, and it can’t work everywhere,” says Harris. “But the plant will run for several decades, and we expect the benefits will be felt over that time.”

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