Energy, Estonia, Markets and Companies, Technology

In spring Eleon acquired an office building in the small town of Salme formerly owned by the road maintenance company AS Eesti Teed that will serve as home to the new software development and control center. Oleg Sonajalg, board member of Eleon, said the establishment of the center was part of the process of setting up a manufacturing industry.

"The crucial factor in choosing the location was that the wind farm that Eleon has been using as a testing ground for international development and where the Eleon prototype turbine stands is situated just a few kilometers from Salme," he said.

Sonajalg said that even though the company has a test wind turbine in its lab consisting of real controllers, it's better to have a real wind turbine at hand to test even the smallest new development when it comes to software.

For practical reasons it's important that the control center that will serve all wind farms operating Eleon turbines was situated as close as possible to software development, since on the one hand the on-duty operating officers constantly need consulting and advice on software, whereas on the other hand information received from them selves as an input to the development of software, he added.

 Eleon, a company of Estonian businessmen Oleg and Andres Sonajalg, wishes to set up a plant for the manufacture of wind turbines in northeastern Estonia that would build up to 60 turbines per year and create from 1,200 to 1,400 jobs by 2020. The plan has become stuck on a dispute with the state, as according to the Defense Ministry the extra-large wind turbines of Eleon would get in the way of the operation of radars of the defense forces. A work group has been set up to try and resolve the diferences.