Giant "Wind Chaser": How big is the world's largest wind turbine? 6 passenger planes connected end to end!

The larger the wind turbine, the stronger its power generation capacity and the higher its overall cost performance. However, the larger the wind turbine, the more difficult it is to manufacture and install.

A few decades ago, the size of wind turbines changed slowly, but now it is different. Some wind turbines just broke the world's largest record in the first half of the year, but in the second half of the year, this title is gone.

That’s the pace of change right now.

In order to let everyone know about the booming wind turbine manufacturing technology, this article introduces four giants among wind turbines from small to large.

Starting from 15 MW

In the wind industry, Vestas is a Danish designer and manufacturer of wind turbines.

In 2021, they launched the "V236", the world's most powerful wind turbine at the time, with a power of up to 15 megawatts.

The diameter of a single blade of V236 is 115.5 meters, and the impeller diameter is as high as 236 meters, which is also the origin of its name.

The picture shows a 49-meter-long blade. You can use this to imagine a single blade of Vestas V236, which is 115.5 meters long. Image from Wikipedia.

The impeller's swept area is as high as 43,742 square meters, equivalent to the area of ​​6.1 standard football fields.

The swept area of ​​the V236 is equivalent to 6.1 football fields (copyright image of the library, reprinting may cause copyright disputes)

In August 2023, the Vestas 15MW V236 prototype standing at the Danish National Wind Energy Test Center generated an astonishing 363 MWh, or 363,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, in a single day, setting a world record at the time.

Breakthrough 16MW

In November 2022, the GWH252 offshore wind turbine, jointly developed by the Three Gorges Group and Goldwind Technology and with completely independent intellectual property rights, was successfully rolled off the production line.

The GWH252 has a power of 16 MW, which is 1 MW larger than the V236. It was the wind turbine with the largest rotor diameter, the largest single-unit capacity, and the lightest weight per megawatt in the world at that time.

The diameter of a single GWH252 blade is 123 meters, and the diameter of the impeller is 252 meters, which is equivalent to the length of six C919 passenger aircraft connected end to end.

The picture shows the C919 passenger aircraft. The GWH252 impeller has a diameter of 252 meters, which is equivalent to the length of six C919 passenger aircraft connected end to end. The picture is from Wikipedia.

The GWH252 has a wind sweeping area of ​​50,000 square meters, equivalent to seven football fields. It has a power of 16 megawatts, which means that when fully powered, it can generate 16,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per hour.

The average domestic household consumes about 2,400 kWh of electricity per year. This means that when a 16-megawatt wind turbine is running at full capacity, the power generation in one hour is equivalent to the electricity consumption of an average household for more than six years.

On June 28, 2023, after the GWH252 offshore wind turbine was successfully hoisted at a wind farm in Fujian, it experienced the extreme test of the super typhoon "Dusurui". The maximum wind speed in the center of "Dusurui" was equivalent to a level 17 wind.

On September 1, 2023, after GWH252 operated at full capacity for 24 consecutive hours, the single-unit power generation reached 384,100 kWh, setting a new record for single-unit wind power generation in the world in a single day.

Fast forward to 18 MW

The record of the world's largest wind turbine was only held by GWH252 for some time. Later, at the end of 2022, a new record came from China.

Wind turbine (copyrighted image from the gallery, reprinting may lead to copyright disputes)

China Haiyang Equipment Group Co., Ltd. announced that its "H260" offshore wind turbine unit was successfully developed in the offshore wind power industrial park in Dongying Economic Development Zone, Shandong Province.

The H260 has a power of 18 MW, a single blade length of 128 meters, and an impeller diameter of 260 meters, making it the world's largest single-machine power and impeller diameter holder by the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023.

The H260 ultra-large offshore wind turbine has a rotor swept area of ​​approximately 53,000 square meters, equivalent to the area of ​​7.4 standard football fields.

At full wind speed, it can generate 44.8 kWh of electricity per rotation. A single unit can output more than 74 million kWh of clean electricity per year, which can meet the annual electricity consumption of 40,000 households of three.

280m impeller diameter

Just a few days after China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation announced that it had successfully developed the world's largest wind turbine, on January 10, 2023, Ming Yang Smart Energy officially released the world's largest 18-megawatt offshore wind turbine - MySE18.X-28X, hereinafter referred to as MySE18.

In terms of power, MySE18 is the same as China Haizhuang's H260, but why did they announce that it is the world's largest?

The reason is that the length of a single blade of this MySE18 exceeds 140 meters, and the impeller diameter is as high as 280 meters. The maximum wind sweeping area is 66,052 square meters, which is equivalent to the size of 9 football fields.

However, everyone needs to note that H260 has been successfully developed and rolled off the production line, while MySE18 is still in the design stage.

To sum up, if you were to ask, which is the world's largest wind turbine currently installed and in use?

The answer can only be GWH252, which was jointly developed by China Three Gorges Corporation and Goldwind Science & Technology.

If you ask which is the world's largest wind turbine that has been successfully developed, has rolled off the production line and is undergoing testing?

The answer can only be China Shipbuilding's H260.

Mingyang Smart's MySE18 is still in the development stage. In the future, it may be the world's largest wind turbine, or it may not be. There is also a possibility that before it goes offline in the future, other wind turbines with larger power and size will go offline in advance.

Will it be bigger in the future?

Super large wind turbines are generally installed near the coast and belong to offshore wind power.

Compared with onshore wind power, offshore wind power has many advantages, such as abundant wind resources, high power generation hours, no occupation of land, no consumption of water resources, suitability for large-scale development, and little interference with the surrounding environment.

Because offshore winds are strong and relatively stable, their power generation efficiency is usually about 20%-40% higher than that of onshore wind power. This is a major reason supporting the vigorous development of super-large wind turbines.

In 2019, the International Energy Agency released the "Offshore Wind Outlook 2019" report, in which they mentioned that with technological improvements, we may see larger wind turbines with a power of around 15 to 20 megawatts in 2030.

The picture is from the "Offshore Wind Outlook 2019" report released by the International Energy Agency.

However, two years after the report was released, in 2021, Vestas' 15 MW wind turbine appeared.

In 2022 and 2023, 16 MW and 18 MW wind turbines also appeared.

In other words, ultra-high-power wind turbines appeared far earlier than the International Energy Agency's forecast.

Therefore, we have reason to believe that 18 MW wind turbines are not the end, nor are 20 MW wind turbines, and 20 MW wind turbines may appear in the near future.

Author: Hanmu Diaomeng, a popular science writer and winner of the "National Excellent Popular Science Work Award" from the Ministry of Science and Technology

Reviewer: Li Ruixia, Vice President and Researcher of Sinopec New Star (Beijing) New Energy Research Institute, National Geothermal Center

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Producer: China Science and Technology Publishing Co., Ltd., China Science and Technology Publishing (Beijing) Digital Media Co., Ltd.