GICON completes world's tallest wind turbine in Germany

The German engineering company GICON has completed construction on the world’s tallest wind turbine in Schipkau, Brandenburg. Standing at 365 meters, the structure is the second-tallest building in Germany, surpassed only by the Berlin TV Tower.

Developed as a pilot project for the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation (SPRIND), the turbine features a rotor hub positioned 300 meters above the ground. The primary objective is to access stronger and more consistent wind speeds found at higher altitudes. GICON expects this design could potentially double the electricity production of a conventional turbine with the same rotor diameter by operating more frequently and reliably.

To reach this height, engineers utilized a specialized telescoping tower design and a strand jack system to lift the inner structure through a lattice frame, rather than using traditional cranes. The current prototype has a rated capacity of 3.8 MW, with future iterations expected to exceed 7 MW. Official commissioning is planned for November, after which the data will be used to evaluate the economic viability of scaling the technology for larger wind farms.