World-first 20MW offshore wind turbine installed in China

Chinese renewable energy equipment manufacturer Mingyang Smart Energy has taken the battle to build, install, and operate the world’s largest wind turbines to the next level, successfully completing the installation of a 20MW behemoth.

Despite concerns that companies battling to boast increasingly larger wind turbines may undermine efforts to reduce and stabilise supply chain costs, wind turbine manufacturers are still battling it out for the biggest and most powerful.

Mingyang Smart Energy, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of clean energy technologies for the wind, solar, energy storage, and hydrogen industries, announced on its LinkedIn account late last week that it had successfully completed the installation of its MySE18.X-20MW offshore wind turbine.

Located on the island Chinese province of Hainan, the 20MW turbine was billed as “the world’s largest single-capacity offshore wind turbine” and boasts a flexible wind rotor diameter of between 260 to 292 metres.

Featuring a modular and lightweight design, the MySE18.X-20MW turbine can generate 80GWh each year, offsetting 66,000 tons of CO₂ emissions – equivalent to the annual consumption of 96,000 residents.

It is Mingyang’s second offshore wind milestone in just the last few months, after the company completed construction of a twin-rotor floating wind turbine platform dubbed OceanX, featuring two turbines on a V-shaped platform with a total capacity of 16.6GW.

Mingyang described OceanX as “the world’s largest single-capacity floating wind turbine platform”, claiming that the technology had been designed for deep water applications and is capable of producing 54GWh of electricity each year.

The installation of Mingyang’s 20MW turbine secures the title for world’s largest turbine installation, beating out Chinese competitor Dongfang Electric Corporation which announced only a few months ago that it had installed an 18MW turbine.

Dongfang’s 18MW turbine, at the time the world’s largest turbine, itself boasted a rotor diameter of 260 metres and was capable of generating 72GWh of electricity each year.