The world's largest single floating wind power platform OceanX has completed assembly in south China's Guangzhou City and will operate in an offshore wind farm in South China Sea.
It is designed to generate about 54 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, meeting the daily electricity consumption of 30,000 three-member households.
The platform is independently developed by MingYang Smart Energy Group, and its floating base is made by CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding.
OceanX is the first floating wind turbine platform with two turbines. The dual-turbine design can effectively reduce the per-unit kilowatt cost, sea area usage, and operation and maintenance costs, providing an innovative solution to extend offshore wind farms to distant seas.
As wind farms expand into distant seas, platforms will face more hostile and extreme environments, such as typhoons and huge waves, and therefore higher costs.
To reduce construction costs, OceanX replaced the traditional steel structure with a steel-concrete hybrid structure, increasing construction speed and reducing costs by more than 50 percent.
Jiang Wei, project manager of the floating base, said that the platform uses a single point mooring system to improve safety and stability in extreme weather conditions.
"The application of single point mooring system enables the floating platform to rotate along the mooring system, always keep the front of the turbine facing the wind and reduce the effects of side winds. It can even withstand a force 14 strong typhoon," he said.
According to the Beaufort Wind Scale, a force 14 wind has a speed of 150 to 166 kilometers per hour.
World's largest wind power platform to operate in South China Sea
