The China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) has built the largest and most powerful wind turbine ever, according to New Atlas, creating up to 18MW of electricity with its enormous 260-meter diameter, three-bladed rotor.
The shipbuilder is manufacturing the H260-18.0MW wind turbine right next to a dock in a facility designed for making, handling and launching enormous structures into the water, making transporting these behemoths much simpler.
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The previous record-holder, the MingYang Smart Energy MySE 16.0-242 uses 118m blades to sweep a 46,000sqm area. CSSC Haizhuang’s new H260-18MW turbine increases the blade length by 8.5% to 128m, increasing the swept area by 15.2% to 53,000sqm.
The H260-18MW sweeps 10 football fields per spin in terms of area and generates 44.8kWh of energy every time it spins.
CSSC says an example 1GW capacity offshore wind farm using these 18MW units would require 13% fewer units than if you’d used 16MW turbines, and the corresponding reduction in seabed work, cabling and other peripherals would reduce the cost of the wind farm by “hundreds of millions of yuan”.
New Atlas reports CSSC Haizhuang is building the vast majority of the components in its own factories to avoid supply chain issues.
The offshore wind sector is growing rapidly. By the end of 2022, plans for about 48GW of floating wind capacity around the world were in place, nearly double the amount in the first quarter last year, according to Fitch Solutions, with European companies driving the expansion.
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Consultancy DNV forecasts that about 300GW will be installed by 2050, representing 15% of all offshore wind capacity, but wind turbine makers are already struggling to meet rising demand due to rising inflation and raw material costs.
The largest project to date, the 88MW Hywind Tampen project being developed off Norway by oil and gas company Equinor was meant to be fully commissioned in 2022 but delays due to some steel parts not being of sufficient quality for four of the towers has pushed the start to later this year.
