World’s biggest wind turbine – 15MW – delivers what it says on the label

Danish wind giant Vestas says its V236-15MW prototype – the biggest operational wind turbine in the world, to date – has reached its 15MW nominal power rating.

Vestas says the offshore wind turbine, installed in December at a test site in Denmark, produced its first kilowatt hour of power shortly after that. Then, after a production ramp-up period required to meet testing and verification standards, the turbine reached 15MW for the first time at the start of April.

A video, below, shows the behemoth in action in Jutland, with 115.5 metre blades and a maximum tip height of 280 metres and an enormous swept area in excess of 43,000 square metres.

“The wind turbine is spinning in strong winds at the DTU Wind and Energy Systems,” says the LinkedIn post from iPS Baltics.

For contrast, the biggest onshore wind turbine currently installed in Australia is 6MW – a Vestas V162 6.0MW at the 396MW Rye Park Wind Farm north of Yass in New South Wales.

Offshore wind projects in Europe are already installing turbines of around 14MW capacity each and many project proponents expect 15MW turbines like the Vestas V236 – or bigger – to be deployed in Australian waters by the time the market gets up and running.

See also RenewEconomy’s Large Scale Wind Farm Map of Australia

And it’s Offshore Wind Farm Map of Australia

And while Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen recently said the wind giant was not planning to go any bigger than 15MW for its offshore turbines any time soon, other manufacturers already have bigger models in the works.

China’s Goldwind in November last year rolled its first debuted a 16MW turbine off the production line, while MingYang Smart Energy has plans for an 18MW wind turbine, as does China State Shipbuilding Corporation.