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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →On February 21, 2023, GE Renewable Energy announced that a GE 2.8-127 wind turbine was operating with the first commercial spiral-welded wind-turbine tower. The 89-metre tower was manufactured by Keystone Tower Systems at its facility in Pampa, Texas. The milestone matters because spiral welding could reduce the transport barriers that limit the size of conventional wind-turbine towers.
The headline that “GE installed” the tower is broadly accurate but incomplete: Keystone developed and manufactured the tower, while GE supplied the turbine and collaborated on the design.
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What was installed?
The project used a 2.8-MW GE 2.8-127 turbine with an 89-metre hub-height tower. Keystone designed the tower as an interchangeable alternative to GE’s conventional 89-metre tower. Its components had received TÜV NORD certification for a 40-year component lifetime—an engineering and certification statement, not evidence that the installed tower has already operated for 40 years.
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The tower was produced at Keystone’s fixed manufacturing plant in Pampa, Texas, rather than fabricated at the wind-farm site. The companies’ announcement described it as the first commercial spiral-welded wind-turbine tower operating on a commercial GE turbine. That is more precise than calling it the first spiral-welded tower ever.
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Keystone and GE’s announcement provides the installation details.
How spiral welding works
Conventional tubular wind towers are usually built from large cylindrical or conical steel sections, often called cans. Those sections are manufactured in a factory, transported by road or rail, and assembled at the project site. Their diameter is constrained by bridges, tunnels, road widths, turning radii and other transport limitations.
Spiral welding changes the manufacturing sequence:
- Flat steel plate or coil is delivered to the production line.
- The material is fed through forming equipment at an angle.
- It is progressively shaped into a cylindrical or tapered shell.
- A continuous helical seam is welded as the shell forms.
- The completed shell is inspected, finished and assembled into the tower.
The result is not a tower made from one single spiral piece. It is a welded steel shell produced through a continuous spiral-forming process. Although the method draws on large-diameter pipe manufacturing, wind towers require their own structural design, fatigue analysis, dimensional controls and certification.
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Wind speeds are generally stronger and more consistent higher above the ground. A taller hub can therefore increase annual energy production and make lower-wind regions more attractive. The benefit is not automatic: the tower, foundation, turbine controls, site conditions and grid connection must work together economically.
Taller towers also need more structural material, stronger foundations and carefully controlled dynamic behaviour. With conventional construction, the sections needed for a large-diameter tower can become too difficult or expensive to transport. The U.S. Department of Energy describes transport and manufacturing as major constraints on taller land-based turbines.
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What Keystone’s process could change
Spiral welding is intended to move some of the tower’s complexity from oversized transport to a more flexible manufacturing system. Flat steel or coil can be easier to move than finished tower sections, while production equipment could potentially be installed close to a wind project.
Keystone and DOE have described possible benefits including:
- larger tower diameters than conventional road transport may allow;
- more automated manufacturing;
- lower steel use through structural optimisation;
- reduced transport requirements;
- taller hub heights; and
- mobile manufacturing plants near future wind projects.
DOE has described the technology as capable of producing towers up to twice as tall and up to 10 times faster than conventional towers. Keystone has also been associated with claims of up to 80% lower manufacturing manpower. Those figures should be treated as attributed technology claims, not universal, independently verified reductions in the cost of every wind farm. A New Atlas report discusses the labour and mobile-factory claims.
What the GE installation demonstrated
The 2023 installation showed that a commercial-scale tapered spiral-welded tower could support a GE turbine and be designed as a replacement for a conventional tower of the same nominal height. It also marked a transition from development work to commercial production and field operation.
It did not, by itself, demonstrate a 10-times production-speed advantage, a specific percentage reduction in total project cost, lower levelised electricity costs or 40 years of field performance. Nor does one certified tower prove that the approach is suitable for every turbine model, wind class, soil condition or offshore application.
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Why Pampa matters
Keystone’s Pampa plant was developed at a former oil-and-gas manufacturing facility. Contemporary company material said the factory could eventually support nearly 200 jobs and produce approximately 1 GW of towers per year at full capacity.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsNREL described Keystone as having begun commercial production at Pampa in 2022. That resolves an apparent timeline confusion: production started before the February 2023 announcement of the first commercial tower operating on a GE turbine.
The first installation therefore demonstrated factory production. The idea of making towers at or near the wind-farm site was a separate, future-oriented part of Keystone’s strategy.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The engineering and construction trade-offs
A spiral-welded tower is not automatically a cheaper tower. Project developers still need to assess:
- Foundation design: different diameter, mass distribution, stiffness or dynamic response can require a different foundation.
- Turbine compatibility: flange geometry, bolt interfaces, natural frequency, damping, vibration behaviour and control assumptions must match.
- Quality assurance: long spiral welds require inspection, nondestructive testing, dimensional control, coating and corrosion protection.
- Site operations: a mobile plant needs land, utilities, steel storage, cranes, trained staff and weather protection.
- Steel supply: the economics depend on suitable grades, thicknesses, coil dimensions, price and local delivery.
- Permitting: taller turbines may face aviation, visual-impact, environmental or local planning restrictions.
- Scale: a mobile production line may not be economical for a small project or a site with only a few turbines.
The key question is not whether the tower is cheaper to manufacture in isolation. It is whether manufacturing, logistics, foundations, erection, maintenance and energy yield produce a lower-cost project as a whole.
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Spiral-welded towers compared with other approaches
| Approach | Potential advantage | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Conventional tubular steel | Mature supply chain and certification base | Oversized transport can limit diameter and height |
| Spiral-welded steel | Potentially local, automated and larger-diameter production | Requires specialised equipment and project-specific certification |
| Concrete or hybrid towers | Can support tall hubs using local materials | More complex site construction and quality control |
| Lattice or space-frame towers | Components can be easier to transport | More assembly and structural complexity |
Spiral welding is therefore one response to the height-and-logistics problem, not the only one. GE has also explored space-frame towers that use standard shipping and on-site assembly.
What happened to Keystone?
As of August 2026, the business is presented by NOV’s Keystone Tower Systems. NOV describes the Pampa plant, spiral-welding technology for onshore towers and a mobile tower-crane system intended to support taller onshore turbine installation. Its materials indicate continued development of taller-tower solutions.
The original announcement used the name GE Renewable Energy. Current product information is published by GE Vernova, which describes the 2.8-MW-127-metre platform with 89-metre and 114-metre hub-height options. The branding change should not be retroactively applied to the 2023 announcement.
Bottom line
The 2023 GE installation was a genuine commercial milestone: an operating 2.8-MW turbine used an 89-metre spiral-welded tower manufactured by Keystone in Texas. Its importance lies in validating a different route to tower production—one that may make larger diameters, taller hubs and more local manufacturing practical.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteBut the installation was not proof that spiral welding has universally cut wind-farm costs or become the industry standard. Those outcomes depend on certification, steel supply, foundations, logistics, construction conditions and long-term field performance.
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