NOTE: The original article was updated following a statement from Mingyang Smart Energy.
Mingyang Smart Energy issued a statement on 13 December, following reports that two blades broke off of the company’s 20 MW offshore wind turbine prototype in Hainan, China. The company says the wind turbine was being tested under extreme conditions and that the blades encountered “abnormal” conditions during testing, beyond their design load limit.
According to some of the reports shared in China, the blade failure happened on 6 December and occurred on Mingyang’s MySE18.X-20MW prototype.
In an email statement to offshoreWIND.biz , Mingyang Smart Energy said: “Recently, images have surfaced online related to the fracture of Mingyang wind turbine blades. These images show a newly developed prototype that Mingyang is testing at our large wind turbine test center in Lingao, Hainan. The turbine was being tested under extreme conditions, a process that is crucial to ensuring that our newly developed models meet high standards and high reliability. Currently, the product is still in the testing phase and has not yet been marketed or mass-produced. The situation did not cause any harm to personnel at the test site.”
The company also shared the statement, along with further details, on its social media on 13 December saying that it had analysed data of the wind turbine testing process and come to a preliminary conclusion that the wind turbine encountered extreme, abnormal conditions during the test. These conditions led to the blades exceeding their design load limit value and fracturing.
“In the process of innovative research and development, conducting this type of extreme testing and experimentation on prototypes is necessary. We will continue to conduct further in-depth research on the product’s adaptability under these low-probability conditions, to refine the functionality of the new model, ensuring that the product performance is superior, safer, and more reliable”, Mingyang added.
The company did not specify the prototype which suffered blade failure.
As for the MySE 18.X-20 MW prototype, Mingyang produced the nacelle at its Shanwei manufacturing base in December 2023 and installed the wind turbine at the onshore test site in August this year.
The company said at the time that this was the world’s largest single-capacity offshore wind turbine, featuring flexible power ratings ranging from 18+ MW to 20 MW, coupled with rotor diameters from 260-292 metres.
With an average wind speed of 8.5 m/s, the model can generate 80 million kWh annually, offsetting 66,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalent to the annual consumption of 96,000 households, according to information the manufacturer shared earlier.
Mingyang also noted that the turbine is designed for global deployment in medium-to-high wind speed regions, with specific suitability for typhoon-prone sites, being able to withstand winds of up to 79.8 m/s.