'New global milestone' | China's CSSC Haizhuang rolls out world's largest wind turbine
VIDEO | Industrial manufacturing giant unveils components for 18MW offshore titan, including record-setting 128-metre-long blades, at facility in Shandong province on Yellow Sea
Components for the world’s most powerful wind turbine have been rolled out by industrial manufacturing giant CSSC Haizhuang – part of the vast China State Shipbuilding Corporation – in a low-key unveiling at the Dongying City industrial park in the country’s north-east Shandong province.
CSSC Haizhuang said first displays of the H260-18.0 componentry “demonstrated that [the manufacturer] has mastered the core technologies of high-rating offshore wind turbines and key components, leading the global offshore wind power industry to reach a new milestone”.
The concept uses a “holographic sensing system” for overall load-reduction and control technology for variable pitch and torque backed by “multi-source online monitoring” to curb blade flutter – aeroelastic instability caused the combination of vibration and pressure distributions on the blades by 10% – and minimise vibrations in the turbine’s tower and foundations by 50%, according to the OEM.
“The adaptive power increasing control technology improves the power generation capacity by 3% for every turbine,” CSSC Haizhuang said, adding that each unit would produce 74,000MWh of electricity every year, enough to supply 40,000 households.
The higher output of the H260-18.0 would cut the number of units needed for a 1GW project by 13% compared to installation of its 16MW model, it said, with only 55 turbines rather than 63 required, shaving ¥1m ($150,000) off construction costs.
“In 2022, China’s offshore wind market entered into the new era of grid parity. Under this situation, the wind industry focuses on how to achieve LCOE [levellised cost of energy] reduction and improving power generation. And there is no doubt that large-scale and high-reliability of wind turbine is an inevitable requirement for the scale-up development of wind power and cost reduction.
“The H260-18MW turbine… will make a great contribution to the improvement of turbine capacity and efficiency, as well as reducing the LCOE of offshore wind farms, and has market prospects in high-speed wind and deep-sea areas.”
CSSC Haizhuang noted that the 18MW model had been developed with “independent IP [intellectual property] rights, which improved the nationalisation rate of [the] turbine” with 80% of the design’s components, including blade, gearbox, generator being delivered by sister companies of the OEM.
“This will ultimately improve the manufacturing level of Chinese wind equipment industry, leading [to] the industrial upgrading [and] bringing significant social and economic benefits and embracing a broad prospect of industrialisation [in the country]”, the company said.
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