It’s T minus 10 days until the general election in Sweden and the Minister for Energy and Digital Development, Khashayar Farmanbar, takes the train to Gothenburg. On the agenda is campaigning, campaigning, campaigning, and happily for us – a visit to Modvion!
Until Khashayar sets foot in the door we’re not taking anything for granted. The minister had planned to join us when we inaugurated Modvion’s factory in May, but was instead called to an emergency meeting in Brussels. Today the minister arrives right on time, with a press secretary and ombudsman from the Social Democrats in tow. They’re welcomed by our CEO and co-founder, Otto Lundman, fellow co-founder, David Olivegren, and Senior Development Engineer, Erik Dölerud who are ready to give the minister a full run-down of our technology.
Let the tour begin
The group walk down to the northern end of the factory where the lumber is stacked high. We use a wood product called laminated veneer lumber (LVL), that we put together to make sheets in the size of one module. For the next tower we will build that is 15 metres long.
That tower will use 28 modules to build 7 sections that will be stacked on top of each other. Including the turbine, the total height will reach 150 metres. David and Khashayar discuss the properties that make wood, and specifically LVL, a particularly good material for wind power – it’s 55% stronger than steel at the equivalent weight.
Building production from scratch
Now we follow the production line, down to the lamination station where just earlier that day sheets of LVL had been placed ready for production the following week. Otto explains that we’ve had to build and customise this entire production line as what we’re doing hasn’t been done before – no small task. We get to the machining station, or the robot cell as we like to call it, where the group is dwarfed by the two giant robot arms. These will start cutting modules to our exact specifications in just a couple of weeks. It’s at around this point the sheer scale of what we’re doing becomes clear.
Khashayar the apprentice
We move further south down the production line and reach a smaller tower that was built to practice installation procedures. With a ladder right next to it the minister can’t resist climbing up to take a look inside. Erik explains that Modvion uses glue instead of bolts to put the modules together and Khashayar gets it straight away, ”so much less maintenance”.
Sustainable innovation is needed
Now we’ve gone through the technology in quite a bit of detail we get talk about the bigger picture. The minister is in no doubt that the transition to renewable energy will happen fast and Otto explains if we’re going to build all this infrastructure with conventional materials, like steel and concrete, there will be a large release of emissions that we can’t afford. We seem to be preaching to the choir but it’s great to hear how seriously this Energy Minister takes electrification.
Importance of local supply
Using LVL has the added benefit of using an abundant, local and renewable material, ours uses Nordic wood. Otto mentions that when we expand internationally we would like to see local production using local wood – this is where you see Khashayar’s eyes light up. He explains that this is becoming a hot topic with the ongoing global situation.
The world doesn’t want to move from relying on Russian energy, to relying on supplies from somewhere else. This type of solution really secures security of supply.
By now we have run well over time and the Energy Minister had to head out on the campaign trail. Thank you for coming out to spend the afternoon with us, you’re welcome back anytime!
