China has, in recent years, been smashing wind and solar power targets, and in a recent announcement, the world’s largest wind turbine has now been turned on in China. China has a history of breaking wind turbine records, and therefore, it is not surprising that China leads the way in large-scale wind turbines once again. In fact, the record has been broken twice within two months. In June 2023, GWH252-16MW, with a rotor diameter of 252m (827 feet), manufactured by Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., Ltd, was commercially deployed [1]. More recently, in July 2023, MySE 16.0-260, with a rotor diameter of 260m (853 feet), manufactured by Ming Yang Wind Power Group Ltd, was commercially deployed [2]. These wind turbines form part of a wind development located offshore adjacent to Fujian, China.
An Incredible Achievement
The new wind turbine from Ming Yang is 275m (902 feet) tall, and due to the massive size of the rotor blades at 130m in length, the turbine has a wind-swept area of 50,000 square metres. The 16MW wind turbine is, therefore, able to generate an enormous amount of energy “67 million kWh of power annually, enough for the usage of 80,000 residents, reducing C02 by 56,000 tonnes (61,729 U.S. tons).” – Ming Yang. [3]
What makes this achievement even more impressive is that the turbine can withstand high-speed winds of up to 178.5mph [4]. This was recently put to the test by Typhoon Talim [5], which saw maximum wind speeds of 85mph, and the turbine was unharmed. There is a good reason, though, for manufacturing a wind turbine to withstand such speeds, “Most of China’s coastal areas are in typhoon zones, and if there is no wind turbine that can withstand typhoons, it can be said that wind power has little future in China.” – Qiying Zhang, CTO of Ming Yang.
What Could Break the Record Next?
In January of 2023, Ming Yang announced the MySE 18.X-28X, another leading offshore wind turbine. The proposed turbine will have a rotor diameter of over 280m. “The turbine has a swept area of 66,052 square metres… Under an annual average wind speed of 8.5m/s, each turbine can generate 80 GWh of electricity per year, sufficient to supply 96,000 residents, while reducing CO2 emissions by 66,000 tonnes.” – Ming Yang. [6]
CSSC (China State Shipbuilding Corporation) Haizhuang Wind Power also proposes an 18 MW wind turbine with a smaller rotor diameter of 260m. “H260-18MW will be able to generate 44.8 kilowatt-hours of electricity per revolution at full power. A single wind turbine will be able to produce more than 74 million kilowatt-hours of clean energy per year – the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of 40,000 households.” – CSSC Haizhuang Wind Power. [7]
It might not be a total domination from the Chinese, with General Electric (GE) of the USA, also proposing an 18 MW Haliade-X wind turbine. “Now we are getting a very positive reception from the market with our 17-MW to 18-MW Haliade X variant off of what we’re shipping this year”, Scott Strazik, CEO of GE Vernova. [8]
Conclusions
China and USA are fighting it out for the top spot in wind turbine size and scale, and it is unlikely that the new 16MW wind turbine from Ming Yang will remain the world’s largest turbine for long, with three 18MW turbines already being proposed. It is expected that this will continue for many years to come as increasing electric generation from turbines increases massively as you moderately increase the turbine size [9].
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References
[1] https://electrek.co/2023/06/29/the-worlds-largest-wind-turbine-is-now-being-installed-in-china/
[2] https://www.sciencealert.com/the-largest-and-most-powerful-wind-turbine-ever-built-is-now-operational
[3] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mingyangsmartenergy_myse16-offshorewind-activity-7086980077443297280-Cazt/
[4] https://electrek.co/2023/07/19/16-mw-offshore-wind-turbine/
[5] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66229532
[6] https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/01/13/mingyang-goes-beyond-18-mw-with-new-offshore-wind-turbine/
[7] https://electrek.co/2023/01/07/18-mw-wind-turbine-china/
[8] https://www.powermag.com/ge-developing-18-mw-offshore-wind-turbine/
[9] https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/wind-turbines-bigger-better
Thumbnail image accreditation: Ana As (Sept 2022) on Unsplash.com. Last accessed on 3rd August 2023. Available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/tvEET0tJhws
