RWE has commissioned its 41MW Rea Unificado onshore wind farm in Soria in the north-east of Spain.
The project features nine Nordex turbines with a rated output of 4.53MW and rotor diameters of 149 metres and it will be able to supply the equivalent of 30,000 Spanish homes with electricity annually.
It is the German developer’s 17th Spanish onshore wind farm as well as its first to feature ‘Soft-Spot foundations’.
The “Soft-Spot® foundations” used by RWE at Rea Unificado are reinforced concrete spread foundations placed on an insulating expanded polystyrene (EPS) layer.
Instead of transferring the loads to the subsoil, the EPS redistributes them on a donut-shaped surface.
This increases stability and reduces the diameter of the foundation slabs and volume of the concrete used, RWE said.
The amount of concrete and steel used was therefore optimised, making the project more cost-effective and environmentally more sustainable, it added.
The German developer now operates onshore wind farms in Spain with a total capacity of more than 480MW, with its Orkoien onshore wind project currently under construction.
RWE chief executive officer for onshore wind and solar in Europe and Australia Katja Wünschel said: “Rea Unificado is the first RWE wind farm where we installed our wind turbines on innovative resource-saving ‘Soft-Spot® foundations’.
“They allow us to significantly reduce construction and material costs while increasing stability. This was quite a challenge. My special thanks go to the development and construction teams for making this innovation in Rea Unificado possible.”