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Bahrain Skyscraper Installs Mega Wind Turbines

Bahrain launched its first large-scale, building-integrated wind turbine system today in the recently constructed Bahrain World Trade Center, the first utility-scale wind turbines to be installed in a building. The 225-kilowatt turbines sit on hulking bridges that link two sail-shaped buildings designed to funnel the wind into the turbines. The blades reach roughly 95 feet in diameter and will generate enough power to satisfy about one-tenth of the building’s net energy demands. A Danish company, Norwin, designed the wind turbines and will continue to refine them in coming months to tap their full energy potential.

Bahrain’s massive wind turbines dwarf the vast majority of building-integrated wind turbines built to date, which are generally placed on the roofs of buildings.

In 2005, the European Union intensively studied building-integrated wind turbines in the United Kingdom, but made only inconclusive findings about the need for additional research. When the report was written, the largest building-integrated wind turbines were three 16.4-foot wind turbines mounted on the roof of a building, far smaller than those used in Bahrain’s World Trade Center.