China has long relied heavily on wind energy. At the beginning of this year, the country began building a wind farm that would use the largest turbines at the time, each with an output of 16 megawatts. A new milestone has now been reached with the successful commissioning of a wind turbine with a rotor diameter more than twice the length of a soccer field, reports IFLScience.
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Wind turbine has rotor blades that are 123 meters long
China Three Gorges Corporation announced that it successfully installed the 16-megawatt MySE 16-260 turbine at the company’s offshore wind farm near Fujian province on July 19. The behemoth is 152 meters high, and each blade is 123 meters long and weighs 54 tons. This means that the wings sweep an area of 50,000 square meters as they rotate.
It is the first time such a large turbine has been connected to a commercial power grid. According to the company, a single turbine will be able to generate enough electricity to power 36,000 three-person homes for a year. The household electricity generated in this way is said to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 54,000 tons compared to the use of coal-fired power plants.
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The facility was able to prove itself against Taifun
The Fuijian offshore wind farm is located in the Taiwan Strait. 7 Beaufort gusts, considered “near-gales,” are commonplace in these treacherous waters. These are the ideal conditions for generating wind energy – provided the turbines can withstand the weather. Mingyang Smart Energy, the company that developed the MySE 16-260, was already confident that the system was up to the challenge. It should be able to cope with extreme wind speeds of 79.8 meters per second.
It wasn’t long before the wind turbine had to prove itself. At the beginning of July, the devastating Typhoon Talim raged in East Asia. The threat of typhoons is ever-present in this region, and the new megaturbine has withstood the onslaught. China Three Gorges Corporation also has plans for the future. “The next step is to use the 16-megawatt turbine in the second phase of the Zhangpu Liuao offshore wind farm,” said Lei Zengjuan, Executive Director of Three Gorges Group Fujian Company.
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USA and Denmark want to catch up with China
While China is at the forefront of developing larger and more powerful turbines, other countries are hot on its heels. In the US, construction is underway on Vineyard Wind 1, a massive offshore project with 13-megawatt turbines. For 2021, Denmark has announced a project to build an artificial island with wind turbines off its coast.