Enercon E-126

The Enercon E-126 is an onshore wind turbine model manufactured by the German company Enercon. With a hub height of , rotor diameter of and a total height of , the turbine can generate up to 7.58 megawatts of power, making it the largest wind turbine in the world (by nameplate capacity) for several years, until it was overtaken in 2014 by the Danish company Vestas with their V164-8.0 turbine. Their model number is a reference to their rotor diameter. The project had come about after Enercon decided to pursue a larger turbine than the 2MW E-66. For some time, Enercon worked on the E-112 project - a turbine with a generator output of 2.25x the 2MW E-66, with it eventually being available for sale sometime in 2002. Enercon then tweaked the E-112's rotor diameter from 112m to 114m, for a slight benefit in efficiency. The turbine didn't sell well - only two 4.5 MW units exist as of today, which prompted Enercon to increase the generator output from 4.5 MW to 6 MW. However, while the generator power output increase did increase sales, by 2008 sales were essentially non-existent, due to two key factors: The fact that the wind turbines were extremely expensive to manufacture, transport and assemble, That Enercon was having to contend with ever-stiffening competition from fellow wind turbine builders, such as Senvion SE and Vestas Wind Systems A/S from Denmark. Unfortunately for Enercon, the belief that the turbine's massive nameplate capacity would market itself to operators backfired, and it became a massive failure, with only 9 being ever installed, and this failure prompted Enercon to start tweaking the design. Enercon's new E-126 project, from the outset, didn't seem to be a massive change from the E-112, but rather an evolution of the model with a slightly higher hub height (135 m vs. 124 m) and a slightly larger rotor (127 m vs 112/114 m) with a new blade profile. For this new model, the sales were also slow, but sometime in 2011, Enercon increased the generator output from 6 MW to 7.58 MW.