Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
as they thought it was all over. However with the emergency
generator we could go on with the blade production. At our home
neither the heating system nor the private water pump was
working, so my wife would lower a bucket into our water well to
hoist the water needed for our household. Our boys were 2 and 4
years of age at that time.
A local business school manager and entrepreneur, Niels
Aage Bjerre, saved the situation by proposing cooperation with
a major boat producing company “Coronet Boats”. The company,
earlier owned by B&W Shipyard in Copenhagen, had been declining
sales, and wanted to enter into a new market. On 27 April 1981,
I signed a license agreement between Coronet and myself. I will
never forget the ferry ride back home from Sealand that day. After
several weeks we had the first payment from Coronet. We were
able to pay the electricity company again, and the electricity supply
could be restored.
In June the first moulds and production equipment were
transported to Coronet in Slagelse, near Copenhagen. One of my
craftsmen was staying for some time in Slagelse, at the Coronet
factory, to make a fluent transfer of the production technology.
Coronet made supplementary moulds, and after the summer
holiday season in 1981, Bonus, Nordtank and Vestas had blades
delivered from the new production site without delay. The new
blade company was now named Alternegy, and the blade brand was
AeroStar.
Following the Hinnerup blade accident, Vestas decided to
develop its own blades, but still in 1985, it was purchasing AeroStar
blades for its 55 kW workhorse. As Aloys Wobben founded
the Enercon Company in 1984, he also chose AeroStar 7.5 m for
his first E-15 55 kW turbine. Just one year after the Coronet took
over the Økær blade design, Vestas, Bonus and Nordtank started
exporting 55 kW turbines to California in great numbers. All
these early turbines were equipped with AeroStar 7.5 m blades.
These early blades were heavy and clumsy, but the simple and
rugged design of the turbines made them survive in the Californian
desert and mountain passes. The most critical and weakest part
of these blades was the German Hütter Blade Root, which became
an Achilles heel for the AeroStar blade. However the problems
were mended with careful service, and in some cases root fixes.
As a result of good technical servicing, out of 1 100 Bonus
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