Onshore


As wind energy has become more cost competitive, onshore turbines are increasing in size faster than ever before. Elly Earls meets Feng Zhao, head of strategy and market intelligence at Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), and Daniel Laird, director of the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) at the US government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), to fi nd out why logistical challenges and social acceptance are the only things preventing them catching up with their offshore counterparts.


he world’s first onshore wind farm, consisting of 20 wind turbines each rating 30kW, was installed in the US in 1980. The first offshore wind project was launched in Denmark 11 years later, featuring 11 turbines with a total 450kW capacity. Turbines slowly grew in capacity to 1.5MW, then 2MW, at which point experts were convinced that was the biggest they could get. However, not content to be constrained by mere opinion, turbine manufacturers kept developing their


technology, with the likes of Siemens, GE and Vestas continuously pushing the envelope on size and rating. GE’s Haliade-X offshore turbine prototype, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, began producing 14MW in 2021 with a 220m rotor and 107m blade. In 2022, Vestas is set to release a 15MW offshore prototype in Denmark – each blade of which will be 115.5m long, giving it a total height of 261m. Chinese wind turbine manufacturer MingYang has even bigger plans – its 16MW offshore wind turbine


Size matters T


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World Wind Technology / www.worldwind-technology.com


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