The tallest wind towers in the world
The 300-metre tower currently under construction in Germany challenges the limits of what is possible and gives us the perfect excuse to take a look at the tallest wind towers on the planet and see whether extreme gigantism also affects towers.
Why taller towers?
Although it is well known, it is worth remembering why it makes sense to place wind turbines at greater heights. The reason is simple: wind speed increases with height. This coefficient is called vertical shear or Hellman’s coefficient, as it was created by physicist Karl Ferdinald Hellman
Where v1 and v2 are the wind speeds at heights h1 and h2 respectively. The Alpha factor or shear coefficient depends on several factors such as the topography of the terrain and atmospheric stability. The rougher the terrain, the greater the shear. Likewise, in very stable atmospheres such as on a cold night, the shear is greater because there is more difference between layers.
The typical value used in simulations is 0.14 offshore and 0.2 onshore (although it is common to use values below 0.2 for prudence).
However, when deciding whether it is worth spending more money on a taller tower in exchange for higher production, it is very risky to use average values, and it is best to measure the actual vertical profile using LIDAR. Furthermore, the vertical profile is much more complex than it seems:
- It is NOT constant with height
The power law is a simplified model; reality follows a logarithmic profile. At heights >150m, the cut-off can change non-linearly due to the existence of thermal inversion layers or because different wind regimes combine.
- It changes over time
The value of the vertical profile varies between day and night, but it also varies according to the season.
The complexity of this value can be seen in this study, which measures wind shear at a site next to the sea. Simply by looking at the distribution of values, it is possible to guess how much this factor changes over the course of a year and that there is even a 15% of the time when the wind shear is negative (although this usually coincides with moments of very low wind).
Is the shear factor above 200 m well characterised?
As Gang Wang explained in his LinkedIn post, towers over 200 metres are entering a little-known area, as the tip heights of the blades will reach almost 300 metres, and at these heights, non-linear phenomena will be more frequent and difficult to model.
It is true that there are very few measurement masts at these heights, but as we have seen, LIDAR can be used to take fairly accurate measurements at great heights. If the use of these ultra-high towers increases, the wind profile between 150 and 300 metres will need to be better characterised.
The tallest tower under construction
At 300 metres, the Gicon-HWT will be the tallest tower in the world when its construction is completed in Schipkau, Germany. It is a lattice tower with four pillars that will contain 2,000 tonnes of steel and some 22,000 bolted parts. Windletter published a very comprehensive article on this tower explaining how it will be built.
It is curious that the turbine to be installed on this giant will be a 3.8 MW Vensys 126, a fairly old and small model for what is currently being installed.
The tallest onshore tower in operation
It is not one but 100 units of Goldwind’s 185m tower. This is a hybrid tower, the first unit of which was installed in China in 2023 and is part of Goldwind’s hybrid tower catalogue, of which more than 3,000 units have already been installed.
According to Goldwind, there are two versions, with a segment diameter of 9 m and 10.6 m. Based on the photos, it appears that the concrete-to-steel ratio is approximately 2/3 to 1/3.
However, according to Gang Wang on LinkedIn, this record will soon be broken, as Goldwind is installing a 204-metre hybrid tower, which will be the new tower height available for the new 204-metre and 242-metre onshore models. This tower will surpass the 200-metre tower that CSSC plans to build in 2026, which is also hybrid.
The tallest offshore tower in operation
Dongfang‘s 26 MW offshore prototype is breaking records. It is the most powerful turbine in the world, has the largest rotor at 312 metres and also the tallest tower at 185 metres. Although it is the same height as the Goldwind onshore tower, the latter is tubular steel with a tower base diameter of 12 metres.
Although the above video shows an offshore model, it is not clear to me whether it corresponds to the 26 MW model or not, as according to Windletter, only the onshore prototype was installed. Be that as it may, these are impressive dimensions for a model that is already legendary.
The tallest tower in operation in Europe
If we forget for a moment about China, which is in a league of its own in terms of size, and look at Europe, we see that the tallest tower in operation belongs to Nordex with its 179-metre hybrid tower installed in early 2025 at N175/6.X in Santow (Germany).
This is a hybrid tower with a 119-metre concrete segment. It is Nordex’s own development and is the first prototype to be installed.
This tower has surpassed the previous European record holder by just one metre: the 178-metre Max Bogl tower at the Gailord wind farm in Germany.
As we explained in our famous 2020 article, Gailord is a unique project, not only because it has the tallest wind towers currently in existence, but also because they form part of an energy storage project involving giant water tanks that are filled with wind energy and then discharged into hydraulic generators.
They are concrete towers with pre-built sections that are subsequently installed in the field, and the turbines installed on these towers are GE3.4-117.
Tallest tower in operation in Africa
Our friends at Nabrawind have the honour of having installed the tallest tower on the African continent, at 144 m. It is located in the Oualidia wind farm in Morocco and supports a 3.6 MW Siemens Gamesa turbine. It is worth watching the video of how the ingenious Nabralift 2.0 solution is installed, which allows very tall towers to be installed without the need for large cranes.
With Fortescue’s recent purchase of the company, there are already plans for the company to install its 188-metre tower in the Pilbara megapark in Australia. When this project is completed, these will be the tallest towers in Oceania.
Higher measurement masts
As already mentioned, such tall towers require wind data at those heights. The LIDAR solution is a very valuable resource and is currently accepted by the IEC standard, but the measurement mast provides real data at different heights, especially in terms of turbulence intensity in complex terrain, which LIDAR does not yet measure well.
In Germany, there is a 300-metre measurement mast that was installed in 2023 to collect data for the GICON tower project we saw earlier.
But, unsurprisingly, China will soon have the world’s tallest measurement tower. It is called the Luzhou Tower and will be 400 metres high. It will be installed in Hefei and is intended to be a research tool open to scientists from all over the world.
Tallest wooden tower
Not all tall towers are made of steel or concrete; innovation also involves wood. In 2024, the Wind of Change laminated wood tower, developed by the start-up Modvion, came into operation in Sweden. At 105 metres high (including the base), it is the tallest wooden wind tower in the world, supporting a 2 MW Vestas turbine.
We already covered this development in a blog article where we mentioned that Modvion plans to scale the design for towers over 150 m and turbines of 6+ MW in the future, pointing to an interesting alternative path towards ultra-tall and sustainable wind towers.
The new generation of ultra-tall wind towers, led by developments in China but already present in Europe and other continents, is taking hub and blade tip heights to ranges where wind behaviour is much more complex and less well understood. This opens up great potential for increased production in moderate wind sites, but also increases technical uncertainty, costs and structural risks, which will only be clarified with more high-altitude measurements and real operational experience. In low-wind markets such as China or Germany, this is a product trend that will undoubtedly continue to develop in the coming years.
