Mingyang's 16.6MW mega turbine arrives in Guangdong

Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Mingyang Group has announced that its 16.6MW OceanX wind turbine has arrived at the Yangjiang Mingyang Qingzhou IV offshore wind farm in Guangdong, China.

The platform was officially launched a month ago in Guangzhou, China, and has now travelled 191 nautical miles to the offshore wind farm site.

OceanX is the world's largest single-capacity floating wind power platform and can be used in water depths of more than 35 metres.

Once operational, it is expected to produce 54 million kWh annually, enough to power 30,000 three-person households for a year, according to Mingyang.

On the platform, the tower sports a novel V shape and carries two 8.3MW turbines. The two turbine engines are equipped with parallel impellers, covering a sweeping area exceeding 52,000 square meters—about the size of seven football fields.

The impeller blades' tips are 5 meters apart, a design that optimises pitch and wind efficiency.

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The unique system allows the impellers to rotate in opposite directions, enhancing wind speed in the central area and "boosting electricity generation from air kinetic energy by 4.29% compared to a single, large turbine with an equivalent swept area."

OceanX's floating foundation consists of three floats, concrete arms and connectors.

A single-point mooring system is employed allowing the turbine to always face incoming wind. The mooring system reduces the ultimate load on the support structure by 40%, improving turbine survivability, even in level 17 typhoons.

In April 2020, the 1:10 scale prototype of the OceanX was launched in Lake Quarry, Germany. By October, it had completed a two-month offshore operation in the Baltic Sea, enduring tests equivalent to 72m/s winds and 30-meter waves, and earned a feasibility certificate from DNV.

The OceanX wind turbines will soon be heading to Europe after a recent agreement signed between Mingyan and Luxcara, an independent German asset manager for clean energy infrastructure projects. Mingyang has been selected as the preferred turbine supplier for the Waterkant offshore wind project in the German North Sea and will supply 16 turbines.