Enercon is rebadging all turbines developed jointly with its Dutch Lagerwey unit as Enercon-branded machines, as the German wind OEM revealed it will launch new models with a power rating of up to 5MW.

The company will give a power boost to the L147 LP4 machine for medium winds (IEC class IIA) presented in September, giving the new turbine the name E-147 EP5, with a 5.0MW nominal capacity. It will also boost the L160 LP4 to become the E-160 EP5 with a rating of 4.6MW.

“This move is a way for us to accommodate the fast-paced developments in our relevant wind energy markets,” said Enercon sales director Stefan Lütkemeyer.

“Our customers are calling for more powerful and more efficient wind turbines. By positioning the E-147 and the E-160 higher, we are offering them other attractive options in a tough competitive environment for their onshore wind projects around the world.”

The rest of the key data and the geometry of the new turbine types will remain largely unchanged. Both of the new developments are based on the EP5 platform, which, like the recent EP3 platform, has a compact and cost-optimised design at its root.

The new EP5 machines will be presented at the WindEurope fair and conference in Bilbao and the Hanover industrial fair, both next week. Recharge as official media partner will be producing the official show dailes in Bilbao.

Enercon with the E-147 EP5 joins other Western wind OEMs that already have announced onshore turbines with a capacity of 5MW or more, such as Vestas, GE and earlier this week Nordex.

Enercon for years had a 7.5MW machine on offer, the E-126, currently the onshore turbine with the highest capacity in the world, but only a limited number of the turbine has been sold, among other things due to transport constraints.

The super-sized model was last installed at Innogy’s 90MW Zuidwester repowering project in the Netherlands in 2017, but its production has since been mothballed.