📩 13/11/2023 13:54
The 18-megawatt capacity turbine, the world's most powerful offshore wind power facility, has been connected to the grid in the southeastern Chinese city of Fuxing. The offshore direct drive wind turbine is by far the highest capacity and largest bladed wind unit in the world.
The wind turbine's propeller blades/paddles, which consist of 30 thousand components, are 126 meters long and cover an area of 53 thousand square meters. The area in question is equivalent to 7,5 times the size of a football field. The turbine, whose inner diameter of the wheel center can be up to 160 meters, is designed for regions with wind speeds of more than 10 meters per second. Therefore, the turbine is resistant to storms with wind speeds of 80 meters per second.
Dongfang Electric Wind Power Co. General Manager Ge Hongbing stated that direct drive turbines will be used in the deep sea from now on due to their easier operation, lack of maintenance and high energy production ability.
A single unit turbine reaches 10 megawatts in a wind environment with an average annual wind speed of 18 kilometers per second. 38 (kWh) kilowatt hours of electricity in a single rotation; Therefore, it produces 72 million kilowatt hours of clean electricity annually. This meets the needs of 40 thousand households. On the other hand, the annual clean energy produced saves 20 thousand tons of standard coal and prevents 55 thousand tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
These 18-megawatt wind turbines are expected to be mass-produced within a year and deployed in the country's southeastern coastal regions. Main components of turbines such as blades, impellers/propellers, generators, converters/inverter power and transformers are manufactured in the country. China is by far the world's largest producer of wind turbine equipment, accounting for half of global production. In fact, the country has so far installed more than 6 wind turbine farms consisting of turbines with unit capacities from 18 to 20 megawatts.