The world’s largest offshore wind turbine, which is currently being installed on a huge wind farm project in China’s Fujian Province, is demonstrating the pace at which wind energy projects are moving forward in the Asian country’s green transition efforts.
Beijing is adopting an initiative aimed at generating clean electricity from renewable energy sources, and replacing it with fossil fuels, as part of broader efforts to achieve carbon neutrality goals in line with the provisions of the Paris Climate Agreement.
As a manifestation of these efforts, China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG) is currently installing the world’s largest offshore wind turbine, with a capacity of 16 megawatts, at the site of an offshore wind farm project in coastal Fujian, southeast China, according to the Offshore website.offshorewind.biz
The world’s largest offshore wind turbine is also the first in the world with this capacity, and is one of the turbines that will be used in the second phase of CTG’s Zhangpu Liao offshore wind farm.
In February (2023), CTG announced that it had actually begun construction of the second phase of the Zhangbo Liao farm, stating that the 400-megawatt project would consist of giant wind turbines.
Monday, June 26 (2023), a press release published by the company said that the first wind turbine with a capacity of 13MW was successfully installed in Pingtan City, Fujian, on June 23 (2023) by a wind turbine installation ship. Paihitan which then moved to “the next site of installation of the largest offshore wind turbine in the world”.
Over the past several hours, Chinese media have reported that China is witnessing the installation of the world’s largest offshore wind turbine.
The aforementioned turbine was developed and manufactured by CTG and Gold Wind Science and Technology.
The world’s largest offshore wind turbine is 146 meters (equivalent to a 50-storey building) tall, with a rotor diameter of 252 meters, blades 123 meters, and is built on 50,000 square meters, or the equivalent of 7 football fields standard feet.
The turbine has the capacity to generate 34.2 kilowatt-hours of clean electricity per cycle, and more than 66 gigawatt-hours annually, which is the amount that could meet the annual electricity consumption needed by 36,000 homes
As for the ship that was used to install the wind turbines, it is also owned by CTG, and it was built by the Chinese “CSSC Hongbo Wenchong Shipbuilding Company”, and it was officially delivered and entered into operation on September 28 (2022). “Baihitan” is 126 meters long, 50 meters wide, equipped with a DB2 dynamic positioning system, and has the ability to operate underwater at a depth of up to 70 meters.
The “Baihitan” has a deck area of 4,200 square meters, a tonnage of 2,000 tons, and a full-rotation crane with a maximum load of 6,500 tons and a lifting capacity of 170 meters above the water.
In addition, the ship is capable of transporting and installing the largest wind turbines currently available in the market.
The total investment cost of the offshore wind farm that CTG is building now is CNY 6 billion (US$761 million).
(Chinese Yuan = 0.14 USD)
The aforementioned wind farm is the first of its kind in the region, according to information previously published by the manufacturer and viewed by the specialized energy platform
The capacity of the second phase of the farm to generate electricity is 400 megawatts, and it will be able to generate about 1.6 terawatt-hours annually, which will save about half a ton of coal, and thus reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 1.36 million tons annually, according to the developer.
Source: offshorewind.biz
