China completes installation of world’s largest single-rotor floating wind turbine

The China Three Gorges Corporation has successfully completed what it says is the world’s largest single-rotor floating offshore wind turbine.

The 16 megawatt (MW) behemoth has been installed upon a semi-submersible floating platform with a new mooring system that can secure it in waters that are more than 50 metres deep.

China’s wind turbine manufacturers and energy giants have been competing to achieve ever greater heights over the past decade, unveiling each year newer and bigger and more powerful turbines that regularly make headlines for “world’s largest”.

China Three Gorges (CTG), one of the country’s massive state-owned power companies, has once again upped the ante, with the installation of the Goldwind turbine 70 km off the coast of Guangdong Province in the southeast of China.

The turbine measures 270 metres tall to the tip of the blade and boasts a diameter of 252 metres, yielding a swept area of 50,000 square meters, equivalent to the area of 7 standard soccer fields.

The single turbine is expected to generate approximately 44.65 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity each year, equivalent to the needs of 24,000 three-person households.

The Three Gorges Pilot is the result of several newly developed solutions that are designed to enable the platform and turbine to withstand the rough offshore winds and seas, including typhoons measuring up to category 17 and waves exceeding 20 metres in height.

“We have developed and applied several new technologies and materials for the first time in China, including a new mooring system, an active ballast system, an intelligent monitoring system, and a 66 kV dynamic submarine cable,” said Pan Hongguan, an offshore wind power engineer at the Three Gorges Group.

“These technologies enable the ‘Three Gorges Pilot’ to withstand super typhoons and operate safely and stably in harsh sea conditions.”

The active ballast system built into the semi-submersible platform utilises real-time data collection to automatically adjust the water volume in the platform’s internal water tanks to keep the platform stable in strong winds and waves.

Similarly, the new mooring system uses nine high-strength composite anchor cables – described as “an ultra-high strength elastic cord” – that lock the platform to the seafloor. Each cable is capable of withstanding maximum tensile force of approximately 1300 tons and has a designed service life of up to 25 years. 

The Three Gorges Pilot specify “single-unit” because one of CTG’s major wind competitors, Ming Yang Smart Energy, debuted in July of 2024 a twin-rotor, or “two-headed” floating wind turbine platform dubbed OceanX, which on a single floating platform boasts a capacity of 16.6 MW consisting of two 8.3 MW turbines.

The first OceanX platform began official operations in late 2024. Ming Yang subsequently announced that it is currently planning to debut a 50 MW version that would feature two 25 MW turbines.

Chinese wind turbine manufacturers are already working on the promise of 25 MW turbines, including the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) and Dongfang Electric, which have developed a 25 MW and 26 MW turbine, respectively.

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