How spiral-welded wind turbine towers are changing the energy industry

A spiral welding process is making its way into the wind energy industry and changing the way we manufacture large-scale pipe. Keystone Tower Systems

We’ve all seen them. Rolling down the highway, chillin’ at a rest stop, or driving down a small-town road. In the distant fields, they spring up, towering above farmland. At night they blink like a runway, flashing their location to incoming pilots. They are wind turbines.

Any transition towards using fewer fossil fuels will be a joint undertaking, with multiple alternative energy sources— hydrogen, nuclear, solar, hydropower, and wind—filling the void.

I found a few blurbs about how a tried-and-true pipe manufacturing process—spiral-welded pipe—is making its way into the wind energy industry. Due to its versatility and mobility, it might change the game. Here is the mission statement from Keystone Tower Systems:

“To drive down the cost of wind energy by developing the advanced tower design and manufacturing technology needed to reach stronger winds at lower costs.”

There are a couple of things at play here. We’ve likely all seen the towers and turbines, piece by piece, strapped to the back of wide-load trucks, traveling along our highways. To move like that, they can only be so big before bridges and tunnels and other lanes make them too big to pass through. That mission statement’s last notion, “to reach stronger winds at lower costs,” is the kicker. Those “stronger winds” are located higher than current towers can reach. To reach stronger, more powerful winds that increase the output and efficiency of a turbine, you need to build taller towers. Taller towers need to be wider at the base to support their now more highly stressed top portion.

By utilizing spiral-welded pipe built on-site, you not only avoid the cost of shipping giant components, but you can also make those giant components more giant-er. Now you can build that massive, taller tower base to push the modern windmill to never-before-seen altitudes.

This spiral-welded pipe is a long sheet of metal fed into a tubular conveyor system. As the flat metal curves into a spiral, a dual-headed submerged arc welding setup welds from inside and outside of the endless spiral. The process is convenient because so much is automated and relatively easy to set up on location or even right on the water where an offshore tower is going up. All the edge prep and inspection take place right there.

Anyways, here’s the article that caught my eye on the topic—you’ll want to jump down the rabbit hole.