Areva’s 5MW M5000-135, which is in final testing at an onshore site in Germany, isa big brother to the turbine maker’s 5MW M5000-116, which was first installedin 2009 as part of the Alpha Ventus project, and is in serial production with80 currently being installed at the 400MW Global Tech 1 wind farm off Germany.

The up-scaled M5000 isbuilt around a one-stage gearbox with synchronous permanent-magnet generator(PMG) transmission system and flies 66-metre glass-reinforced plastic bladeswith a swept area of 14,326 square metres.