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Experts in Foundation Design

From 1 to 12 MW wind turbines

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance in 2019 developers worldwide have globally
commissioned a little over 45GW of onshore wind turbines. CTE Wind designed, valueengineered
or peer-reviewed foundations close to 1,500 WTG-foundations around the globe,
which represents around 5 GW of the installed onshore wind energy in 2019. A good result
for the 30 engineers working together worldwide. CTE Wind is an international engineering
consulting firm, headquartered in France, and specialized in the analysis and design of
onshore wind turbine foundations. Its engineering services lead to inventive foundation
solutions for wind turbines. In Rotterdam, they have designed the foundation for GE’s giant
12 MW Haliade X. But they are also with familiar with smaller 1 MW machines carried by
wooden towers. «Thanks to our experienced civil, structural and geotechnical senior
engineers the design of those wind turbine foundations worldwide are only a little challenge
to us», said Alexander MARTIN, CEO of CTE Wind International, «regardless if it is for new
turbine models from the top manufacturers or less common WTG-models from smaller or
local manufacturers», he added.

Biggest wind park in France, Poland and Spain

The sum of all experiences made since 2003 is the reason why CTE Wind’s engineering
team with offices in Brazil, Poland, Portugal, Spain, USA and Asia are often the first
choice for OEMS, wind park developers and EPC/BoP contractors. «That is how we
achieved to do over 17,500 wind turbines in 67 countries and without any failures», continues
MARTIN. One of CTE Winds main goals is to deliver foundation designs that optimizes the
use of resources and help to save concrete and reinforcement steel. Such a solution is the
patented SOFT-SPOT®, a gravity foundation with a soft layer under the anchor cage. Each
project receives an adapted design solution to the specific soil conditions. In Finland CTE
Wind designed a rock anchor solution when its engineers also designed a near-shore
foundation in Asias Mekong-Delta. «The trust of our customers leads us not only to
design special and new solutions but also the foundations for the biggest wind parks in
France, Spain and Poland. We are thrilled when we can play an important role in a wind farm
project. This shows the confidence of our customers in our designs and is also an
encouragement for us to continue to perform well», he ends.

CTE Wind’s engineering team is working on different wind projects in Ethiopia, Egypt, South Africa and Saudi-Arabia. And not for the first time ! The WTG foundation experts can look back on 15 years of project history in these regions.

La Richardais FRA – Wind projects all over Africa and Middle East are ramping up. The Global Wind Energy Council foresees wind energy capacity reaching over 3GW by the end of 2023 in South Africa, but according to the IEA, Sub-Saharan Africa alone offers a wind energy potential of 1,300 GW.

Foundation Expertise

As a matter of fact, CTE Wind has been requested to support different European and Arabian customers for their wind projects in Africa and the Middle East. Projects in South-Africa, Ethiopia, Egypt and Saudi-Arabia are currently in CTE Wind’s pipeline. The engineering office provided many times its wind turbine foundation expertise over the last 15 years in North and South Africa. As of 2021, CTE Wind designed, value-engineered or peer-reviewed foundations of 2700 wind turbines within 76 projects. The services vary from geotechnical consulting, to preliminary and detailed foundation design, as well as forensic engineering for existing wind farms, without forgetting the third-party verification (CAT3) task.

First African Project

CTE Wind has worked regularly in Morocco but also in other countries of Africa and the Middle East.

In 2008 CTE Wind had its first wind project for a project in North-Africa. The expert in foundation design for wind turbine foundations designed gravity bases for 131 Siemens machines in the Tarfaya wind park, located in Southern Morocco. Then came the Ashegoda wind farm in Ethiopia, the Kabertene wind park project in Algeria, the Balikesir wind farm in Turkey and the Nojoli wind park in South Africa

Bigger Wind Parks

In 2016 CTE Wind has been awarded the wind park in Ras Ghareb, Egypt, with 125 wind turbines.

The Ombepo wind farm in Namibia came later. In Saudi Arabia, the trouble shooting work was done successfully for the Dumat Al Jandal wind park with 99 positions. A new project in the country has just been awarded to CTE Wind.

This short list gives a quick overview as to where CTE Wind’s expertise in wind turbine foundation in Africa and the Middle East has been requested.

CTE wind is more confident than ever to work on any wind projects from South-Africa to the Middle East region. Get in touch if you need further information about foundation expertise and services.

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About CTE Wind

About CTE Wind – Experts in Foundation Design World Wide:We serve since 2003 the wind industry as civil / structural engineers for wind park owner, developers and EPC/BoP-contractors. Often also directly for the OEMs. 25000 wind turbines in 73 countries. We provide geotechnical services, preliminary and final designs for wind turbine foundations, repowering and life time extension services.

With the Soft-Spot® CTE Wind Civil Engineering captures the spirit of the times. The success is not only due to the new design solution. It is more a result of the developers increasing projects requirements and the size of the turbines. CTE Wind masters both easily.

La Richardais (FRA) – CTE Wind International, expert in foundation design for wind turbine generators, has his finger on the pulse of time with the Soft-spot® solution. Trademarked and patented in France (patent pending worldwide), 750 wind turbines use the resource saving solution worldwide. Over the half of the 50 realized projects related to the Soft-Spot® are located in France.

Cost savings

The success of the civil engineering company CTE Wind is not only due to the Soft-Spot®. It mainly relies on the fact that CTE Wind can master the increasing requirements of the wind energy developers. Wind farms have to be designed in a way that saves resources and allows fast set-up times; two important factors which determine the construction costs of WTG foundations.

A further driver and important point why developers choose CTE Wind is the increasing size of the turbines. Four to five years ago, the hub height of wind turbines ranged between 80 and 90 meters. Today the average hub heights of CTE Winds projects are between 110 and 120 meters. Some of the final designs even had a hub height far above average. The highest hub height ever calculated by CTE Wind stands in Salzgitter Germany with 166 meters.

Adapting the design to soil conditions

CTE Wind adapts its foundations designs to the local soil conditions and in accordance with applicable national and international standards. To avoid extremely large foundations CTE Wind’s engineering team has found with the Soft-Spot® a good and reliable solution to meet the mentioned resource-saving requirements. The construction is very easy and it allows savings in concrete volume up to 15% and a total weight reduction of reinforcement bars of 7 to 9%. Thanks to the reduction of the foundation diameter the earthwork to be handled is also reduced. This leads to less surface use for the foundation.