GE Brings COBOD Concrete 3D Printing Technology to Climate Summit

Last week, GE put COBOD ’s 3D concrete printing technology forward at the Climate Summit, hosted by President Biden. The event was attended by leaders of 16 different countries across the world, which together are responsible for 80% of global carbon emissions and global gross domestic product (GDP). A select number of civil society leaders and business leaders, including Danielle Merfeld of GE were also in attendance. Merfeld delivered a presentation on GE’s work towards speeding up decarbonization around the world. This included some of GE Renewable Energy’s latest technologies, investments and research projects, as well as COBOD’s solution with wind turbine foundations 3D-printed from high-performance concrete.

The company revealed the world’s first 3D printed wind turbine tower in 2019. Cooperating with LafargeHolcim, the company continued the project, after this trial. Henrik Lund-Nielsen, founder and General Manager of COBOD, commented: “We have always believed in the possibilities of our technology and 3D concrete printers in the wind turbine sector, and GE putting it on the table for the world leaders show, that we are not alone with this confidence. We are extremely proud to be the inventors and manufacturers of the technology and printers, which made it possible to produce the first ever 3D printed concrete wind turbine tower bases for GE in cooperation with LafargeHolcim.”

Top view of one of COBOD’s 3D printed turbine towers. (Photo credit: COBOD)

While the first tower took 3 weeks to 3D print, COBOD managed to print the second tower in just 3 days, this time with a significantly larger volume of material. Jakob Jorgensen, Head of projects & Implementation at COBOD said: “We had predicted, that the second time we would 3D print a wind turbine tower, our productivity would see a massive improvement, as we also saw this when we in 2019 3D printed a copy of Europe’s first ever 3D printed building. In 2019 when printing the BOD building a second time, we saw a 20 times improvement. Such multi times faster printing we also expected this time, simply because so much is learned the first time, that can be improved the second time around. However, that we really could print the second tower in just 3 days for a 10 m concrete structure was even a bit surprising to us, as we also increased the volume of printed material very significantly”.