Wind turbine

Extreme engineering is becoming the norm as offshore wind continues to scale up. Sweeping the area of 12.3 standard NFL fields each rotation, with gargantuan 140-meter (459-ft) blades, the MySE 18.X-28X will be the largest wind turbine ever built.

The China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) is upping the ante on offshore wind, announcing it's building the largest and most powerful wind turbine ever, making a peak 18 megawatts with an enormous 260-m (853-ft) diameter on its three-bladed rotor.

Wind energy is often thought of as "clean" but, in fact, the technology has the blood of thousands (if not millions) of bats on its hands. A new drone-mounted system shows promise in rerouting some bats above the turbine blades and away from danger.

Floating wind turbines are crucial to the future of offshore wind, but they require radically different thinking. French company Eolink is building a full-scale pyramid-style floating wind turbine that reduces materials and weight by more than 30%.

Aeromine says its unique "motionless" rooftop wind generators deliver up to 50% more energy than a solar array of the same price, while taking up just 10% of the roof space and operating more or less silently. In independent tests, they seem legit.

A prototype wind turbine has recorded an extraordinary single-day renewable energy production total, bringing in a massive 359 megawatt-hours in a 24-hour time period. To get there, it had to operate over its rated capacity, essentially all day long.

Early last month, Siemens Gamesa reported that recyclable turbine blades had been successfully installed at the Kaskasi offshore wind farm in the North Sea. Now the company has announced the market availability of an onshore equivalent.

Swedish company SeaTwirl says its floating vertical-axis wind turbines have what it takes to dramatically reduce the cost of deep offshore wind energy, and it's signed a deal with Westcon to build and deploy a commercial-scale 1-MW turbine in Norway.

Boston startup T-Omega Wind says it's prototyped and tested a unique floating offshore wind turbine that can withstand massive storms, but at 20% the weight and around 30% the price of conventional designs, unlocking the world's best wind resources.

We interviewed the core team at Norway's World Wide Wind to learn more about its floating, tilting, contra-rotating, double turbine design, which it says can unlock unprecedented scale, power and density to radically lower the cost of offshore wind.

Norway's World Wide Wind has a radically different take on offshore wind power. These floating, vertical-axis wind turbines feature two sets of blades, tuned to contra-rotate – and they promise more than double the output of today's biggest turbines.

We've seen some inventive ideas around how giant turbine blades might be saved from landfill at the end of their lives, and scientists have just thrown another one into the mix with some wide-ranging, and delicious, potential.