E-160 EP5 wins ‘best wind turbine of the year’ award

ENERCON‘s new wind energy converter series E-160 EP5 has been given the ‘turbine of the year award 2020’ by the international specialist journal Windpower Monthly. The company‘s new flagship won first place in the ‘large onshore turbine’ category. The publishing house announced the jury’s choice for ‘Best Onshore Turbine 4.5 MW+’ in London today.

The key aspects influencing the expert committee’s vote were the rapid development and the substantial advances in the wind energy converter technology that ENERCON has achieved in a relatively short space of time with its new top model. According to the jury, the team has built on the LP4 platform designed by Lagerwey, which forms the basis for all of the EP5 models, to develop the E-160 EP5 into a high-performance wind energy converter with a new PMG generator, one of the biggest rotor diameters on the market and a groundbreaking modular design. The jury added that in doing so, ENERCON has also created the foundations to design other PMG-based direct drive wind energy converters in the future, with higher nominal power and more yield potential.

It went on to say the E-160 EP5 therefore represents how much ENERCON has achieved in its reorientation in such a short space of time. In addition to the enormous effort made by the company, the jury’s award also takes into account the fact that the E-160 EP5 prototype was successfully installed and commissioned in 2020 despite the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Being granted this title is extremely positive news for us and in particular for the whole Development team’, ENERCON CTO Jörg Scholle comments on the award. ‘I am delighted that the remarkable dedication our employees continuously bring to our projects is also being recognised in this way. We work in a large international and interdisciplinary team in Development in which ENERCON and Lagerwey are growing closer and closer together and producing good results, as this demonstrates. The experts are keeping an eye on what we are doing too, and the award tells us they are clearly impressed with what they are seeing. We are on the right track!’