Vattenfall has entered a collaboration with Swedish wood technology company Modvion to explore using the latter’s timber towers on future wind farms.
The partners, who have signed a letter of intent, said the agreement could lead to a reduction in carbon emissions during manufacturing by at least 25%.
By building towers of wood, the carbon dioxide emissions caused by manufacturing steel towers can be radically reduced, while the carbon dioxide absorbed by trees as they grow is also stored in the wooden towers, the two companies said.
Vattenfall has an onshore wind pipeline of 5GW.
“During their life cycles, Vattenfall’s wind turbines already have very low levels of climate-impacting emissions. We want to drive those levels down even further,” said Daniel Gustafsson, Vattenfall’s head of land-based wind power development in Sweden.
“We see that wooden towers can be part of our solution for decreasing our carbon dioxide footprint, which can complement the work we are already doing with fossil-free steel as an example.”
“Vattenfall has solid experience of wind energy construction. By working together, we can hasten the development of the next generation of wind farms. With towers made of wood, wind power can potentially become fully climate neutral,” added Otto Lundman, Modvion chief executive.