'Record-breaking' floating wind turbine celebrates installation
Floating prototype developed by Chinese turbine-making giant Goldwind set to be towed for several days to wind farm in Guangdong province
Goldwind has installed what it says is the world’s most powerful single-unit floating offshore wind turbine, a machine it claims also grabs two other industry records.
Goldwind announced today that its 16MW floating offshore wind model was successfully deployed at a China Three Gorges offshore wind farm in China’s southern Guangxi province.
After several days of towing, the turbine is planned to arrive at a wind farm in the neighbouring Guangdong province.
Goldwind said that its GWH252-16MW model is the most powerful single-unit floating offshore wind turbine installed globally.
Goldwind claimed its turbine has also secured two other world records in floating wind for the widest rotor diameter (252 metres) and lightest unit weight per-megawatt.
Goldwind said the successful installation “showcased China's wind power industry's comprehensive expertise in technological innovation, coordinated supply chain management, engineering capability and experimental testing.”
Goldwind is the world’s leading wind turbine supplier by raw capacity. Its sales are however overwhelmingly focused in the vast Chinese domestic market, as opposed to Western wind giants that have far greater global reach.
“We can see that in the Chinese market, it’s not only fixed-bottom turbines breaking records,” said Chao Guo, a market analyst at energy analytics firm TGS. “Floating turbines are doing so as well.”
“Over the past few years, Chinese OEMs have clearly accelerated the development of larger-capacity turbines.”
Goldwind’s floating prototype may soon be surpassed not just by CRRC’s 20MW model, said Guo, but also by a 17MW floating machine being developed by Dongfang Electric and China Huaneng.
Goldwind said its new machine will help reduce floating wind development costs as well as conserving sea area for project development.
“To address the vulnerability of offshore power grids,” Goldwind said the machine can achieve a "black start" using its own generator.
The turbine generates 44.65 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, said Goldwind, “enough to meet the annual electricity needs of over 24,000 families of three.”
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