China Boasts World’s Largest Floating Wind Turbine

China has just unveiled what it claims is the biggest and most powerful floating offshore wind turbine in the only segment of renewable energy where it is not the global leader.

China’s leading train maker, CRRC Corporation Limited (CRRC), has said that the new turbine, with a power generating capacity of 20 megawatts (MW), has rolled off the production line in Yancheng city, news agency Xinhua reports.

To compare, the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm currently in operation, Hywind Tampen in the Norwegian part of the North Sea, has a system capacity of a total of 88 MW, provided by 11 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 8.6 MW.

The Chinese turbine, which is independently developed and made in China, has a rotor diameter of 260 meters (853 feet), and its sweep area is roughly the size of seven standard soccer fields, the company says.

The turbine’s annual electricity generation potential could be enough to power about 37,000 households annually, saving 25,000 tons of coal and cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 62,000 tons, according to the Chinese company.

“Floating offshore wind turbines are a key technological trend shaping the future of wind energy development,” Wang Dian, deputy general manager of CRRC Qi Hang New Energy Technology Co., Ltd, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

China is leading the world in terms of overall investments into renewable energy, installed capacity, and the pace of new capacity additions. But it’s not the leader in the floating wind industry, although its turbine makers are winning deals for floating wind farms overseas.

China invested $676 billion in its energy transition last year, government data showed earlier this year.

Since 2013, China has been responsible for over 40% of the annual additions to global renewable energy capacity. Last year, China’s newly installed renewables capacity accounted for more than half of the world’s total, the government has said.

China has already reached its goal of having more non-fossil fuel installed electricity capacity than fossil fuels earlier than planned, with 50.9% of its power capacity now coming from non-fossil fuel sources.

Yet, the current floating wind operational capacity globally of 245 MW is led by Norway with 94 MW across 3 projects, followed by the UK with 78 MW at 2 projects, with China only third with 40 MW across 5 projects, UK industry association RenewableUK said in a report last week.

In Norway, the world’s largest operating floating wind farm, Hywind Tampen, is being used to power the Gullfaks and Snorre oil and gas fields, covering 35% of the annual need for electricity on the five platforms: Snorre A and B and Gullfaks A, B, and C.

The global pipeline of floating offshore wind projects has expanded by 9% in the last 12 months from 244 GW to 266 GW, according to RenewableUK. Of these, Italy has the largest pipeline, followed by the U.S., the UK, Spain, and Sweden.

The problem with floating wind is both high cost and technological challenges as developers aim to install the floating turbines at the best offshore areas for wind generation—and these are too deep for today’s fixed-bottom turbines.

Most of the large floating wind projects in Italy and the U.S. are in the very early stages of development or still applying for consent, RenewableUK’s report showed.

Only four projects with a total of 102 MW of capacity are currently under construction worldwide, 7.3 GW of projects have gained consent or are in the pre-construction phase, 21.6 GW are in the planning system, and more than half of the entire global pipeline, 184 GW, are in early development or applying for a lease.?

Chinese turbine makers are looking to tap the overseas floating wind project pipeline.

Just last week, Chinese turbine manufacturer Mingyang signed an agreement for the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) of the Med Wind Project with Italian developer Renexia. Under the deal, the massive 2.8 GW project offshore Sicily – planned to be the first such wind park in the Mediterranean with 190 floating turbines – will use Mingyang’s 18-MW turbines. Integrated Load Analysis on the turbines has started, and a prototype of the 18-MW turbine is already successfully operating, the Italian developer said.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com