China unveils kit to test 35MW wind turbines
News comes just days after 26MW machine was rolled out by another Chinese OEM as supersizing of wind turbines shows no sign of abating
Chinese manufacturer Sany has unveiled equipment that will allow it to test up to 35MW wind turbines in the latest signal of the stupendous scaling up of technology in the sector.
Sany said that “China’s first and the world’s largest” 35MW test bench was put into operation on Tuesday at its wind power testing centre.
This test bench can simulate the full lifecycle of wind turbines up to 35MW, said the turbine maker.
Equipped with six 100-ton hydraulic cylinders, Sany said it applies multi-directional, coordinated loads across six degrees of freedom, allowing for extreme, multi-axis stress testing.
The test bench can it said also accurately simulate complex weather conditions and extreme working environments, withstanding typhoon-level winds.
By utilising high-intensity accelerated fatigue tests, the test bench can it said simulate 20 years of wind farm operation in just one year.
It can simultaneously perform functional tests, failure limit verification, and design model validation on the entire turbine and key components such as generators, gearboxes and main shafts, said Sany.
“Little by little everybody will know that we are serious about being a major global turbine OEM player,” Sany’s Europe director Paulo Fernando Soares wrote on LinkedIn.
He highlighted Sany’s “new intelligent manufacturing facilities, new products, new first-class testing capabilities” and its ESG programme.
Speaking to Recharge, he added that Sany does not expect there will be 35MW turbines "in the near future, but this kind of investment is for long term."
Philip Totaro, CEO of renewables analytics firm IntelStor, said his company had “predicted that cash-flush Chinese companies would out-spend European counterparts in R&D as well as wind turbine component manufacturing in an attempt to take a global technological lead.”
“This is another step by a Chinese wind energy OEM in the demonstration to Western project financiers that they should be considered just as viable as Western OEMs.”
Chinese turbine makers have been at the forefront of a wind turbine ‘arms race’ to produce supersized new machines.
In the last week, Dongfang Electric has rolled a 26MW offshore turbine model off its production line. The largest installed wind turbine globally is a 20MW offshore wind model designed by China’s Mingyang.
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