A legacy of performance
The AOC 15/50 has the longest operational history of any wind turbine in its class.
First developed in the early 1990s, its robust yet simple design makes the AOC 15/50 an ideal choice for a wide range of applications.
The beginnings
From 1982 to 1986, approximately 750 Enertech E44 wind turbines were installed throughout the United States and several other countries around the world.
The turbine was developed in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) under their Advanced Wind Turbine (AWT) Program.
The goal of this program was to produce economic wind-generated electricity in areas with moderate wind resources. Additional goals were to achieve high availability through sound design, ensuring fail-safe reliability.
A need for simplicity
Based upon this philosophy of simplicity, the Atlantic Orient Corporation developed a next generation 50kW wind turbine.
The first step was evaluating the historic performance of a significant number of the Enertech E44 wind turbines.
Problem areas were identified and ranked according to their contribution to turbine downtime. Potential solutions to downtime-related problems were identified and evaluated on an economic and risk basis.
The next generation
As a result of this analysis, Atlantic Orient Corporation developed the preliminary design of a 50kW wind turbine designated the AOC 15/50.
The results of this effort were so encouraging that final design and prototyping of the AOC 15/50 were initiated under separate NREL contracts.
The Dutch National Laboratory for Renewable Energy (ECN) performed an independent reliability analysis and concluded that the AOC 15/50 was of fundamentally sound design.