A 26 MW offshore wind turbine has been rolled off the production line by China’s Dongfang Electric Corporation (DEC) in Fuzhou, Fujian Province.
The company said the offshore wind turbine is tailored for areas with wind speeds of 8 m/s and above and has strong resistance to typhoons and corrosion.
The wind turbine’s hub centre is 185 metres high, equivalent to a 63-storey residential building, while the designed rotor diameter exceeds 310 metres, with a swept area equivalent to 10.5 standard football fields.
With average winds of 10 m/s, a single unit could generate 100 GWh of clean energy annually, enough to power 55,000 homes, said DEC.
A single turbine could lead to a 30,000-tonne reduction in coal use and an 80,000-tonne cut in CO2 emissions.
According to DEC, the 26 MW offshore wind turbine is the world’s largest in both capacity and size .
In June this year, DEC installed an 18 MW offshore wind turbine at a coastal test base in Shantou, Guangdong province.
The model has a rotor diameter of 260 metres and a swept area of 53,000 square metres, and can generate 72 GWh of electricity annually, enough to power around 36,000 households, according to the company.
A couple of months later, another Chinese wind turbine manufacturer, Mingyang Smart Energy, installed the MySE 18.X-20 MW in Hainan.
The turbine is designed for global deployment in medium-to-high wind speed regions, with specific suitability for typhoon-prone sites, according to Mingyang.