With a thunderous roar, Burgenland Energie demolished three old generators in the Potzneusiedl wind farm in a spectacular manner on Friday. Plants of the latest generation are now being built in their place.
Burgenland Energie understands the term “repowering” to mean the replacement of existing older wind turbines with generators of the latest generation, which are significantly more powerful. Put simply, this means that more electricity can be produced with fewer wind turbines. Therefore, on Friday, three old plants in the Potzneusiedl wind farm were blown up to make room for new wind energy generators. A lot of effort was required to be able to implement this project. First, the rotor blades had to be removed. A demolition expert then calculated all the details and gave instructions for digging the so-called pitfall, i.e. the area into which the tower fell in a controlled manner after the explosive charge, which weighed around seven kilograms, was triggered. Wind strength was a decisive factor. The preparatory work took a total of two weeks. “The weather, especially the wind, was carefully observed in advance,” says Burgenland Energie. For safety reasons, blasting is only possible up to a wind force of nine Beaufort, which corresponds to around 75 to 88 kilometers per hour. The upcoming storm on Friday almost thwarted the plans. Therefore, the blasting planned for 1 p.m. had to be brought forward to 11:30 a.m. After the fire brigade and police had ensured that there were no people in the security area of 300 meters around the towers, Stephan Sharma, CEO of Burgenland Energie, triggered the first explosive charge. Sustainability is a top priority: the demolition material is crushed, steel and concrete are separated, the recycled material is used for the substructure for paths and crane sites.
source site-12