Hainan Qiyuan offshore wind farm begins operation

The first batch of units of the Longyuan Power Hainan Qiyuan Offshore Wind Power Project have officially been connected to the grid and begun generating electricity, marking a new breakthrough in large-scale operation of high-capacity offshore wind turbines in China, the China Energy Investment Corporation Co., Ltd. (CHN Energy) said on Sunday.

The Qiyuan offshore wind farm is located in the western sea area of Dongfang City, Hainan Province. It lies approximately 12 kilometers from the coast, with water depths ranging between 12 and 26.5 meters, and covers a total area of nearly 27.24 square kilometers.

The project is designed to install 22 wind turbines with a capacity of 10 megawatts each and 20 wind turbines with a capacity of 14 megawatts each, bringing the total installed capacity to 500 megawatts.

The first batch of turbines now in operation has a capacity of 50 megawatts and is expected to generate 150 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. These massive white turbines, turning steadily in the sea breeze, are continuously converting offshore wind energy into green electricity.

"After its full operation, the Qiyuan offshore wind farm is expected to generate more than 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, which can meet the power demand of approximately 1.2 million three-person households in Hainan. This is equivalent to reducing standard coal consumption by about 467,000 tonnes and cutting carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 1.271 million tonnes per year. The project will strongly support the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port and the Clean Energy Island, and will provide valuable experience for the future installation and large-scale operation of high-capacity wind turbine units in China," said Liu Dan, supervisor of the Longyuan Power Qiyuan Offshore Wind Farm under China Energy Investment Corporation.

Hainan Qiyuan offshore wind farm begins operation

More than 1,000 coal mines in China have adopted intelligent systems, as their application expands from pilot projects to large-scale deployment, the China National Coal Association said recently.

Statistics show that by the end of 2025, a total of 1,066 coal mines nationwide have introduced smart systems, with such technologies now supporting more than 65 percent of the country's coal production capacity. The number of autonomous mining trucks in operation surpassed 4,000 units, roughly doubling on an annual basis.

The rapid adoption of smart mining is driven by robust domestic capabilities in intelligent equipment and technology. In Beijing, a newly deployed underground Internet of Things (IoT) precision positioning and management system links workers, positioning cards and operating zones, while also enabling health monitoring. Its core technologies and components are fully domestically developed and have been applied in coal mines and coal preparation plants. "This underground positioning system we've developed has a positioning deviation of less than 20 centimeters when a person or device is stationary. Even when a person or device is moving at high speeds, the margin of error remains minimal. A single device can cover a radius of 800 meters," said Wu Fengdong, general manager of China Coal Beijing Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Coal Group Corporation.

Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021–2025), cumulative investment in smart mining has exceeded 107.1 billion yuan (about 15.6 billion U.S. dollars), with intelligent technologies now widely applied, accelerating the shift from traditional mining to modern, technology-driven extraction.

Over 60 pct of China's coal production capacity uses smart technology by end of 2025