Mingyang Smart Energy, maker of the world's largest wind turbines, has just unveiled its latest gigantic floating offshore wind turbine creation. The OceanX is a two-headed, deep-water behemoth capable of generating during Cat 5 hurricanes.
It's the world's first – and largest – floating single-platform featuring not one, but two 8.3-MW wind turbines for a colossal combined power output rating of 16.6 MW. It's expected to produce around 54,000 MWh annually – enough to power around 30,000 Chinese households ... Or about 5,150 American households. Yikes.
The Chinese company officially completed construction on the world's first dual wind turbine floating offshore wind platform in Guangzhou, Guangdong province in south China on Saturday. It was designed by MingYang Smart Energy and built by a partnership between Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company and China State Shipbuilding Corp.
Its twin counter-rotating rotors sit atop a V-shaped structure, braced with high-tension cable stays, fitted to a Y-shaped floating platform for maximum stability. Two MySE16.6(T) wind turbines with blade diameters of 597 ft (182 m) with full yaw capability spin at each business end. The floating platform weighs in at about 16,500 tons (15,000 tonnes) and is designed to function in waters over 115 ft (35 m) deep, giving this monster access to the best offshore wind resources.
The platform utilizes "ultra-high performance concrete" for durability and lower costs and a single-point mooring system said to reduce the impact on the marine environment as well as increasing stability, even in typhoon conditions.
The OceanX was built to withstand Category 5 hurricane conditions in winds of up to 161 mph (260 km/h). And not simply just withstand those conditions, but to turn into the howling wind and continue producing electricity while riding waves as high as 98 ft (30 m). It's rated at a 0.135 turbulence intensity, which is relatively high for an offshore site.
Most offshore wind farms operate in conditions well below 0.135 – closer to 0.06 – as rough conditions can cause power fluctuations and significant premature wear on the floating power generator's components.
The company built and successfully tested a 1:10 scale prototype of the OceanX in 2020.
Last year, Three Gorges Energy installed a MingYang Smart Energy MySE 16-260 – the largest offshore wind turbine in the world – onto a 500-ft (152-m) tower into its wind farm. The turbine has a rotational blade span covering roughly 540,000 sq ft (50,000 sq m). A Walmart Supercenter is about 180,000 sq ft (16,900 sq m).
According to the Global Wind Energy Council, China has ranked first globally for offshore wind development for the sixth year in a row. China's goal is to supply one third of its national power consumption through renewable sources by 2025. With about 9,010 miles (14,500 km) of coastline, it's certainly sitting on a lot of real estate for offshore wind farms.
When searching for an expected Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE) of the new OceanX, we couldn't find any figures – so we don't know what potential this machine has in helping to bring down the cost of offshore wind. Certainly, floating machines like this can cut down on some serious materials and logistics costs, as well as installation and maintenance costs, as compared to pinwheel designs that go all the way down to the sea floor.
Time will tell – but it's certainly an impressive piece of engineering!
Source: Mingyang LinkedIn