China Three Gorges Corporation installed and activated the world’s largest wind turbine, connecting it to a power grid. (Image Credit: China Three Gorges Corporation)
I’m not a big fan of wind turbines, no pun intended. After finding out that wind turbines are essentially bird blenders, I can’t spiritually support the installations. Millions get hit and die every year. There are ways to mitigate the loss, other technologies to explore, and other ideas. But few companies think about the environmental impact. They should. That said, here comes the world’s largest turbine…
It looks like China is putting an even bigger spin on its clean energy solutions. Energy firm China Three Gorges Corporation announced that it recently activated its 16 mW MySE 16-260 turbine, the world’s largest, on the offshore site. The impressively tall 500ft turbine overlooks the Taiwan Strait and connects to a commercial grid. Experts are hoping the mega turbine can generate enough energy to power houses near the Fujian province.
More impressively, the turbine’s blades are 404 feet long, double the size of an American football pitch. A single turbine can generate 34.2 kWh of energy/revolution and can generate 66 GWh of clean energy annually. These blades, weighing 54 tons, nearly cover a region of 540,000 ft2 while spinning and producing sufficient power for 36,000 homes annually. It also has a mind-boggling 853-ft rotor diameter. Additionally, the energy produced by the 400 MW Zhangpu Liuao Phase 2 offshore wind farm, which is 1.6 TWh per year, has the potential to reduce CO2 by 1.36 million tons per year compared to conventional coal power plants.
The wind farm could generate up to 1.6 TWh per year. (Image Credit: China Three Gorges Corporation)
So far, the massive turbine passed its Typhoon Talim test. While the tropical storm ravaged parts of East Asia, the MySE 16-260 turbine operated normally despite the high wings. Mingyang Smart Energy, the company that built this turbine, says it could survive 79.8 meters per second wind speeds. Now China Three Gorges Corporation wants to install more of these turbines at offshore wind farms. It plans to deploy batches in the second phase of the Zhangpn Liuao Offshore Wind Farm Project.
Now countries like the US and Denmark are installing massive turbines. The States has started constructing the Vineyard Wind 1, an offshore wind farm featuring 13 mW GE Haliade-X turbines. Denmark is also working on creating an artificial island for wind turbines.
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