The world’s tallest wind turbine now stands 1,197 feet in eastern Germany

Schipkau, a former lignite mining area in Germany’s Lusatia region, is home to a wind turbine that reaches 365 meters, or 1,197 feet, including its blades. The Dresden-based engineering firm GICON, which built the pilot machine for the federal innovation agency SPRIND, says it is the world’s tallest wind turbine. The structure reached its full height on September 29, 2026.

At 365 meters, the machine is only a few meters shorter than Berlin’s TV tower, which makes it Germany’s second-tallest structure. Euronews measures the 365 meters from foundation to rotor tip and puts the TV tower just 3 meters higher. Official commissioning is planned for November, with final work still under way and the turbine’s promised energy yield not yet shown in operation.

The record is the developer’s claim

No international registry is named in the coverage, so the record rests on the word of the people who built the machine and paid for it. SPRIND’s project page calls the turbine “the tallest wind turbine in the entire world,” and Euronews reported that GICON itself states it is the world’s highest, a claim the broadcaster did not independently certify. Electrek’s report carries the same height and the same attribution.

The metric figure is the original. A tip height of 365 meters converts to about 1,197.5 feet, and the English-language coverage gives 1,197. The rotor hub sits 300 meters, or 984 feet, above the ground. A pre-completion report in Heise had quoted 364 meters in total, a one-meter difference that disappeared once the final dimensions were announced.

Telescoping lattice and a 125-meter rotor

The record height comes from how the machine was assembled. Instead of lifting components with a very tall crane, GICON used a telescoping tower: a specialized lifting system raised the inner tower through the surrounding steel lattice structure, then secured it in its extended position. Heise described a design with four support legs rather than three and an inner and outer tower, with the generator at the top of the hub.

The Nordkurier reported a rotor diameter of 125 meters for the site, on a deep concrete foundation. The machine is rated at 3.8 megawatts, modest by the standards of today’s largest turbines, with future versions planned above 7 megawatts. The point of the height, in GICON’s account, is access to stronger and steadier wind. SPRIND frames it as a way to make better use of existing sites, open new ones and reduce the number of controversial locations, while Heise noted that local residents backed the project after GICON involved them in the planning and that the rotors were laid out so they would not overlap with neighboring turbines.

GICON founder Jochen Großmann, quoted by Electrek, called reaching 365 meters “an overwhelming moment” for the whole team and described what began as a challenging idea and an equally challenging construction project as a “globally unique facility” in Schipkau. The concept traces back to engineer Horst Bendix, whose original vision, according to SPRIND, GICON reworked into a new design built from conventional turbine components on a steel lattice mast. Heise reported that the Bendix approach of placing generators at ground level was dropped in favor of a generator at the hub.

Delays, cost and the November start

The build was not smooth. According to Euronews, quality problems with steel components halted work in December 2025, construction resumed on March 2, 2026, and the structure reached full height on September 29. The project was originally planned to finish in the summer. Nordkurier put the budget at 20 to 30 million euros, funded by SPRIND.

The performance case is projected and not yet proven. Euronews cited GICON’s figures of 30 to 33 gigawatt-hours a year, enough for roughly 7,500 four-person households, at a generation cost under 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. GICON also claims the design could produce about double the electricity of a conventional turbine with the same rotor diameter, based on measurements from a smaller 300-meter test mast at the Klettwitz plateau showing 40 percent more wind energy at height.

The pilot is also meant as a template. Nordkurier reported plans for up to 1,000 similar installations across Germany by 2030, integrated into existing wind parks to limit land use, and a target output of 3.8 to 4.2 megawatts for the Schipkau unit, enough for nearly 4,500 households, a figure that could double with larger generators. Those are developer and agency plans, not outcomes, and the household counts differ between outlets because they rest on different assumed output and consumption.

Electrek notes that the projected yield has yet to be demonstrated in operation. The November commissioning will be the first point at which the 365-meter machine can start producing the numbers GICON and SPRIND have so far only forecast.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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