China’s First Floating Wind Turbine Heads Offshore

China’s first floating offshore wind turbine has set sail towards its installation site off the coast of Yangjiang City in Guangdong Province.

The floating wind turbine will be installed for demonstration purposes at the 400 MW Yangxi Shapa III offshore wind farm developed by China Three Gorges (CTG).

The unit comprises a MySE5.5MW typhoon-resistant turbine developed by MingYang Smart Energy and a semi-submersible floating foundation built by Wison Offshore & Marine.

The wind turbine will now be installed, commissioned, and tested over the next six months, MingYang Smart Energy said.

The MySE5.5MW floating turbine is designed to meet the harsh environment like typhoons and extreme waves in the South China Sea.

This floating wind turbine will also be the first in the world to be connected to a fixed-bottom turbine.

MingYang used its existing offshore expertise to shape the integrated, fully coupled time-domain simulation and modeling of the turbine-floater-mooring system.

On top of that, MingYang developed an advanced floater movement control strategy, enabling the floating turbine to adapt to the complex environment of winds, waves, and currents in the South China Sea, the company said.