TIME Magazine | The Best Inventions of 2023

A Turning Point for Turbines

Keystone Tower Systems Spiral Welded Wind Tower

BY PRANAV DIXIT

OCTOBER 24, 2023 7:00 AM EDT

Wind power is among the greenest sources of energy around, but the sheer size and weight of wind turbines makes building and transporting them challenging. Keystone Tower Systems, aided by more than $7 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, solved these issues with a spiral welding technique previously used to make steel pipelines. The process lets the company ship flat sheets of steel, then curl them into cylinders onsite, which means the towers can be built twice as tall as regular turbines.