Austrian developer Windkraft Simonsfeld (WKS) has kicked off repowering works at its Hipples wind farm, where seven 660KW Vestas V47 machines will be replaced by two 2MW Senvion MM100 turbines.
Decommissioning of five of the seven Vestas turbines has started, with the remaining two machines to be decommissioned in the autumn, WKS said.
Groundwork for the Senvion pair will start in April, with installation planned for late summer.
The new turbines will have 100-metre hub heights and 50-metre blades, WKS said.
The company expects the MM100 machines to feed some 11 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity to the grid each year.
The Vestas hardware was installed in 2000 and produced around 9GWh of electricity a year.
Image: Senvion