“World’s biggest” wind turbine claims new generation record

The battle to successfully install and operate the world’s first 16MW turbine seems to have been won by the China Three Gorges Corporation, which reportedly completed 24 hours of operation late last week to generate a new global daily wind power generation record of 384,100kWh.

China Daily reported over the weekend that the country’s state-owned power company, China Three Gorges Corporation, had successfully completed 24-hours of full-power operations on its 16MW offshore wind turbine.

Located at the 400MW Zhangpu Liuao offshore wind farm in Pingtan, Fujian province, the single 16MW wind turbine generated a record-breaking 384,100kWh over its first 24-hour period of full operations.

China Three Gorges announced back in June that it had installed a 13MW offshore wind turbine at the Zhangpu Liuao offshore wind farm and was moving on to install a 16MW turbine.

Similarly, Chinese renewable energy manufacturer Ming Yang Smart Energy announced on its LinkedIn account in June that it had commissioned the first MySE 16-260 offshore wind turbine.

Given the difficulty of parsing Chinese-language news and corporate news, it is unclear if Ming Yang also connected its 16MW wind turbine to the grid at this time.

However, the company did announce in July that the 16MW turbine as well as 5.5MW and 7.25MW floating turbines had come through typhoon Talim unscathed. It remains unclear, however, if the 16MW turbine was already operational.

China Three Gorges’ 16MW turbine boasts blades measuring 123 metres in length, creating a swept area of around 50,000-square-metres.

The company expects each 16MW wind turbines to be able to generate 66GW of clean energy each year, saving approximately 22,000 tonnes of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by around 54,000 tonnes.