21.10.2026

World record turbine tower

The world’s highest wind turbine was completed two weeks ago with the help of 1,350 tonne Liebherr LR 11350 crawler crane from Schmidbauer.

The 3.8 megawatt Gicon wind turbine features a telescopic lattice tower and was installed at an existing wind farm in Klettwitz, south of Berlin, not far from the Polish border.

The tower is made up of 2,000 tonnes of steel with 22,000 individual parts, all of which are standard items. The turbine can generate enough electricity to power 6,000 homes.
The crane was rigged with Liebherr’s dual parallel section PowerBoom plus 60 metre jib, with a 42 metre derrick mast and 850 tonnes of counterweight.

The bulkiest and heaviest single component was a 40 by 40 by 40 metre section of the turbine tower weighing 375 tonnes.

The crane travelled with the load along a track made up of steel plates and bongossi timber, before placing it onto a 50 metre high base at a 44 metre radius, close to the crane capacity.

Once the nacelle was lifted into place on top of the retracted tower, the crane had to be re-rigged in order to install the blades on the 126 metre rotor assembly. The PowerBook was replaced with 104 metres of regular boom, topped by an 84 metre jib providing a tip height of almost 200 metres

After several days waiting for the wind levels to drop, the three rotor blades were installed at a height of around 170 metres over a 12 hour period, partly at night.

When it was all completed, the turbine’s inner tower was extended to a hub height of 300 metres, and an overall height to the tip of a rotor blade of 365 metres, making it Germany’s second tallest structure after the Berlin TV Tower.

Crane operator Fabian Ueck said: “During its 18 months of operation, my LR 11350 has performed with absolute reliability and without any faults,”

The telescopic wind tower was developed and built by engineer Jochen Großmann of Gicon in Dresden. Founded in 1994, the owner-managed company is using the Lusatia turbine as a pilot example of this new approach and technology.