Owens Corning announces this innovation in the Conference and exhibition European energy wind of Greece

WindStrand, which is the name of the Owens Corning company innovation, allow to manufacture blades long, rigid and light by 20 per cent less than other high-performance materials. The product is the first implementation of the new platform for reinforcement of high-performance of the company, more robust, lightweight, HiPer-tex.

Owens Corning announced at the Conference and European exhibition of wind energy in Athens, Greece, an innovative roving of fiberglass in a single place and netted fabric, WindStrand, allowing the wind energy market to take another step forward to compete successfully against other alternative energy sources to reduce the cost per kilowatt.

The product will allow the turbine manufacturers to increase the length of the blades in a 6 per cent and produce up to 12 percent more power - by 20 per cent less than the cost of any hybrid solution of carbono-vidrio of the competition currently on the market.

In addition to the benefits of cost/performance, the product also offers the traditional processing of glass, combined with the strength of stiffness and weight of other materials of high performance manufacturers.

Other points of the product to be highlighted compared to the glass and traditional include:

• An increase of 35 per cent in the forces of tension
• An increase of 17 per cent in stiffness (module)
• Better resistance to fatigue, impact, ageing, corrosion and temperature

The product, which will be available in the market at the end of 2006, is the first application that uses the new platform for reinforcement of high performance HiPer-tex, Owens Corning, which is the result of a revolutionary technology of fusion, bundle and sizing of glass. The new reinforcement will be produced using the next generation of the process of manufacture of fiberglass of Owens Corning, which has an impact on environment, significantly less than other technologies used today.

The product, which will be available in the market at the end of 2006, is the result of a revolutionary technology of fusion, bundle and sizing of glass

WindStrand performance statistics are based on extensive beta testing in the field, and the optimization of the design of the blades by a syndicate of independent research based on the Netherlands - Composite Technology Center (CTC).

CTC studied the effects of replacing the glass type and traditional with WindStrand for several components in a rotor or shovel of 44 metres in length, suitable for a 2.5 MW wind turbine.

"For 67 years, since the original invention of fiberglass, have produced sustainable solutions to save energy that truly transforms the markets and improve the lives," said Chuck Dana, President of Owens Corning composite Solutions Business. "Continue this story pioneer with the introduction of a new product for wind energy, which is the key to our collective ability to adapt to the growing demand for energy and to ensure the security of energy supplies, is essential for our corporate purpose and our spirit of true innovation".

The new reinforcement will be produced using the next generation of the manufacturing process of Owens Corning fiberglass

The parity of the price per kWh of generation power varies considerably between different sources of energy. To better fulfil the promises made by the EU under the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, a recent directive of the European Union stipulates the need to help double the participation of non renewable energy from fossil sources, such as the wind, a 6 to 12 per cent of gross energy in Europe by the year 2010. The benefits of cost/performance of innovations such as WindStrand are essential for helping renewable sources of energy such as wind energy, to move to the next level of adoption in the global market.

This is the first time that the European Union has adopted legislation aimed at promoting the production of energy from renewable resources and is the first step towards a sustainable energy system. If the objectives are achieved through the European Union, ecological electricity consumption will rise from a 14 to 22 percent in 2010.

However, the power of wind power generation is not limited to Europe. India is the fourth largest producer of power based on the wind after Germany, Spain and the United States, and the current plan of wind power in China will reach the 20 gigawatts by 2020.

Latin America, Brazil offers the greatest potential where wind energy could provide a cost-effective alternative to hydropower systems in some areas of the country where the water is more used for irrigation.