World's largest 26-megawatt offshore wind turbine has been unveiled in east China's Fujian Province on Saturday, a fully domestically designed and manufactured unit which symbolizes a milestone achievement in the country's green energy development.
The 26-megawatt offshore wind turbine boasts remarkable dimensions. Its hub center is 185 meters high, equivalent to a 63-story residential building. The designed rotor diameter exceeds 310 meters, with a swept area exceeding 10 standard football fields, making it the largest turbine globally in terms of both capacity and size.
One of the key achievements of this project is the fully localized design and manufacturing.
"We have overcome the bottleneck of relying on imported bearings for direct-drive systems. We have achieved complete independence and control in both bearings' control systems and the supporting components. Whether in terms of technical specifications or efficiency and reliability, we are at the forefront of the world," said Wang Jun, vice general manager of the Dongfang Electric Corporation, the manufacturer.
The turbine is designed specifically for medium- to high-wind-speed offshore areas. With an average wind speed of 10 meters per second, a single unit can generate 100 million kilowatt-hours of clean energy annually.
With high efficiency, this turbine is enough to power 55,000 households for a year, saving more than 30,000 tons of standard coal and cutting carbon dioxide emissions by over 80,000 tons.
"In a 500-megawatt offshore wind project, using a 26-megawatt turbine compared to an 18-megawatt turbine would reduce the total number of turbines by over 30 percent and lower the cost per kilowatt-hour by more than 10 percent. This offers strong equipment support for achieving cost parity in offshore wind power," said Wang.
China completes building world’s largest 26-MW offshore wind turbine
