The world’s largest wooden wind turbine is now up and running in Sweden! The turbine is made of more than 100 layers of thin wood and glue, COMPRESSED together. It stands at 492 feet tall, including the blades. Now that the turbine is spinning, it has started supplying electricity to the local grid and is providing power for about 400 homes.

Modern wind turbines are typically composed of bolts and steel—a metal that comes with a significant carbon footprint and several challenges. One of those challenges is that steel towers can be heavy and difficult to transport. After all, these turbines are built somewhere and then transported across land and sea to their installation destination.

The company behind the new wooden wind turbine, Modvion, is hoping to make a difference in the world of wind turbines by addressing these issues. Modvion’s Chief Executive, Otto Lundman, said that steel is agreat material but very heavy.

“With this material, we can perform the same task but with 30 percent less weight and with more than 100 percent less carbon emissions,” Lundman said. The company’s wooden wind turbine can be built on-site, and is composed of a section of modules. This makes them lighter and easier to transport than steel. The wood used for Modvion’s turbine came from about 200 trees that were sustainably farmed, further cutting down on the carbon emissions of their turbines.

Wind turbines are a relatively simple concept: wind turns the blades of a turbine around a rotor, which spins a generator, and this creates electricity. Higher wind speeds help generate more electricity, and technology has allowed wind turbines to reach higher heights where there is more wind power to be harnessed.

Wind energy is more affordable than some other types of energy, and its use has been growing in recent years. In the United States, wind energy supplied more than 10 percent of total electricity generation in 2022. For 12 states, wind energy provides more than 20 percent of their total electricity generation.