16 Megawatt Offshore Wind Turbine to Come Up in China

Chinese domination in the renewable energy sector continues with the latest announcement of wind turbine manufacturer MingYang Smart Energy’s plans to deploy two giant wind turbines, with 16 megawatts (MW) capacity each, in the South China Sea. Sources say that the installation will take place at the MingYang Yangjiang Qingzhou Four offshore wind farm.

According to the company, each of the two MySE 16.0-242 turbines has the ability to power more than 20,000 homes. It is also being claimed that the turbines have a life of 25 years. The erection will be about 242 metres high and each of its blades will measure 118 metres.

Each of the MySE 16.0-242 turbines can produce about 80,000 MWh of electricity every year. Going by the present technology, this capacity is about 45 per cent more than MingYang’s previous turbine model. Each of these turbines is said to be capacibe of eliminating more than 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The commissioning of the wind farm is scheduled after four years from now. The two gigantic wind turbines will join the 59 8-megawatt wind turbines of the wind farm.

Once the project takes off, the three 118-meter massive blades will sweep an area of more than 46,000 square meters. In common parlance, this area is equivalent to that of more than six football grounds. In addition, MingYang Smart Energy has affirmed that its new wind turbine can be mounted on the seabed and also be erected on a floating base.

It has been learnt from the company that the commercial production of the mega wind turbines will commence in the year 2024.

China remains on the forefront of offshore wind power generation. In 2021, the country added about 17 GW offshore wind capacity. The Asian renewable giant presently operates almost half of the world’s total installed offshore wind power at 26 GW out of the world’s 54 GW.