After the Chinese clean energy company Mingyang Smart Energy launched a 16-MW, 264-meter-high offshore wind turbine, the field of wind turbine developers building larger and larger turbines has become more crowded. Rated as the largest in the world.

With its 118-meter-long turbine blades and a sweeping area of more than six football fields, a single rotor MySE 16.0-242 with a diameter of 242 meters can power more than 20,000 homes and generate 80,000 MWh per year. Importantly, MySE 16.0-242 shows more and more scale advantages, generating 45% more energy than MySE 11.0-203, the largest turbine model before Mingyang, while the rotor diameter only needs to be increased by 19%.

"The launch of our largest new wind turbine, MySE 16.0-242, aptly illustrates the three basic driving factors of technological evolution-demand, combination and iteration." said Zhang Qiying, president and chief technology officer of Mingyang Smart Energy, "for the coastal areas of Guangdong In response to the demand for typhoon wind turbines, Ming Yang has systematically developed high-quality products by cooperating with global supply chain partners to integrate cutting-edge technologies in the aerospace, materials, and big data industries."

Increasing international competition

In a sense, Mingyang broke into the circle of offshore wind power giants out of thin air, but this is only because the development of wind turbines is often divided between Chinese manufacturers and manufacturers in other parts of the world. Mingyang has provided a variety of different turbine models-from 5.5MW, 6.45MW, 7.25MW, 8.3MW to 11MW. But by announcing the world's largest offshore wind turbine, Mingyang has established itself as a potential contender for the three major wind turbine developers in the West-Vestas, Siemens Gamesa and General Electric Renewable Energy.

In the past few years, these three developers have been competing with each other to announce, launch and operate larger offshore wind turbines. As of early 2021, the Danish wind turbine giant Vestas released its V236-15.0MW turbine, maintaining the record for the largest offshore wind turbine. This beats GE Renewable Energy's record-breaking Haliade-X turbine-with 14 MW, 13 MW and 12 MW options, and surpasses Siemens Gamesa's 14 MW offshore wind turbine.

But the new Mingyang MySE 16.0-242 broke the limit again. The larger blades and rotors produced a larger sweep area. Therefore, its three huge blades only need to rotate once to increase power generation. To compare the size of Mingyang's new turbine-the turbine has recently received design certification from DNV and China General Certification Center (CGC), and plans to launch a complete prototype in 2022-Australia's tallest skyscraper, Queensland Surfer Heaven’s Q1 tower, with a height of 322.5 meters (or 235 meters without measuring the spire).

Keywords: Turbine, Engineering Machinery

All these height and record-breaking measurements seem meaningless, just another company is creating an insignificant record, but the reality is that these offshore wind turbines become taller and more powerful, and offshore wind power generation will become cheaper. For example, building a 160 MW offshore wind farm 5 years ago requires 16 wind turbines, so 16 foundations need to be built and 16 wind turbines installed. However, when MySE 16.0-242 reaches commercial production in the first half of 2024, the same wind farm will only need 10 turbines, so only 10 foundations and 10 turbines will be needed. The result is the same amount of power generation, but the cost is reduced.Editor/Baohongying