Mingyang’s two-headed floating wind turbine begins operations, despite fractures in giant blades

Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Mingyang Smart Energy has revealed that its two-headed floating offshore wind platform OceanX has begun operations despite reports of blade damage to the giant 20MW turbine which was installed earlier this year.

Mingyang unveiled the OceanX in July as “the world’s largest single-capacity floating wind turbine platform”.

It features two 8.3MW turbines installed on 219-metre towers at an angle atop a floating platform using ultra-high-performance concrete. The whole contraption displaces 15,000 tonnes of water and relies on counter-rotating blades to increase power generation by nearly 5 per cent.

Mingyang says the OceanX has been engineered to withstand typhoons with 360° load considerations and a single-point mooring system, and is capable of powering 30,000 homes each year.

Previously located at dock in Guangzhou, China, the OceanX platform has been installed at Mingyang’s Yangjiang Qingzhou IV offshore wind farm, off the southeast China coast.

The start of operations for OceanX was announced a day before Mingyang were forced to address reports that its MySE18.X-20MW offshore wind turbine had suffered significant damage.

Reports from local Chinese media – as well as a video posted by Recharge journalist Cosmo Sanderson – depicted two blades breaking off the turbine, which was the world’s most powerful when installation was completed in August.

In a statement to journalists and posted on its English-language LinkedIn account, Mingyang confirmed the damage.

It explained that the “turbine was being tested under extreme conditions” and that “the wind turbine encountered extreme, abnormal conditions during the test, causing the blades to exceed the design load limit value and thus become damaged and fractured.

“However, the entire machine and system remained intact and complied with industry-standard safety design requirements,” the company added.

Mingyang seemed almost to indicate that this damage was almost part of the process. “In the process of innovative research and development, conducting this type of extreme testing and experimentation on prototypes is necessary,” the company said.

“We will continue to conduct further in-depth research on the product’s adaptability under these low-probability conditions, to refine the functionality of the new model, ensuring that the product performance is superior, safer, and more reliable.”