The race to build ever taller and more powerful wind turbines has resulted in yet another milestone, this time in China, where a turbine atop the world’s tallest steel-concrete tower was recently connected to the grid.
China’s National Energy Administration and one of the country’s five largest state-owned power generation companies, China Huadian Corporation, both recently revealed that a wind turbine with a record-breaking hub height of 204-metres was connected to the grid at the end of September.
Equivalent to a 70-story residential building, the new turbine is a demonstration unit built at the China Huadian Xinji Wind Power Project Cluster. The wind farm reportedly boasts 16 wind turbines, each with a unit capacity of 6.25 megawatts (MW).
The new “world’s tallest” turbine, however, is expected to be able to increase annual power generation hours by 220 hours and annual power generation by 6 per cent, when compared to the same 160-metre-tall turbines. This is due to its ability to access more stable and faster wind speeds at a higher altitude.
China Huadian says that the tower “can be built like building blocks” – which would seem to suggest the same modularity as many tall turbine towers – and has been designed to work in regions with otherwise low wind speeds.
The announcement comes almost exactly a month after Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas claimed it had installed the world’s tallest onshore wind turbine, with a hub height measuring 199 metres.
Vestas, therefore, appears to have lost that milestone to Chian Huadian.
The Vestas EnVentus V172-7.2 MW turbine was built in Germany by local construction firm Max Bögl Group atop one of its concrete hybrid towers that also uses modular tower sections.
“As permitting constraints, land availability and grid access increasingly shape project development, maximising site performance by partnering across the value chain is more important than ever,” Vestas said at the time.
“This milestone demonstrates how innovation can increase energy production by accessing stronger and more consistent wind resources through modular design, helping to capture more energy and create greater value for customers.”
Vestas and China Huadian, however, will both have to settle for second-best, however, following the installation at the end of September of a wind turbine in Germany with a hub height of 365 metres.
Whereas Vestas and China Huadian are relying on more traditional hybrid concrete and steel towers, German engineering firm Gicon has built a mammoth tower of steel framework that consisted of outer and inner towers, with the inner tower hydraulically lifted through the centre of the outer tower before being secured atop.
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