Nabrawind engineer Arantxa Esparza has been awarded a prize for best Spanish invention of 2023.
The pile foundation patent for the Nabralift tower, which reduces concrete consumption by 80%, was awarded as the best patent of the year by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.
Arantxa Esparza, project manager at the Spanish-based company, received the award for the best patent in the absolute category.
The ceremony, held at the School of the Industrial Association in Madrid, honored the best patents and utility models granted in 2021 in Spain.
The awarded patent, of which Esparza is co-inventor together with Ricardo Savio, Ion Arocena and Eneko Sanz, protects a foundation solution where the traditional large surface slab is replaced by individual piles.
This design allows for an 80% reduction in the amount of concrete used in the foundation, resulting in significant savings in cost and CO2 emissions during the construction of a wind farm, Nabrawind said.
The award-winning technology has already been used in Nabrawind’s first wind farm in Morocco and will be used this year in the company’s projects in France and China.