Behold, for the world’s most powerful offshore wind turbine will soon debut in the UK. GE Renewable Energy will launch its 12mW Haliade-X project in partnership with ORE Catapult off shore in Blyth, UK after 5 years of testing and research and an investment sum of US $400 million. The wind turbine, is scheduled to complete assembly by 2019 and be in full operation in 2021.

Haliade-X will stand high at a height of 260 meters with the world’s largest 12MW electric rotor, with a large diameter of 220 meters across comprising of 3 blades each extending at 107 meters. She will not only be the largest wind turbine in the world, but the most powerful with a gross capacity factor at a high 63%. Haliade-X can generate 67 GWh annually, 45% more AEP than the most powerful machines on the market today.  One Haliade-X turbine can will generate enough clean power to supply to 16,000 European households.

The future Haliade-X and the present Haliade 150 6MW wind turbines are currently under structural testing at Blyth’s ORE Catapult lab complex. Engineers and specialists will perform a series of design validation on the mega machine’s major electronic and cooling systems. System architects are at the same time creating an IT-based data collection system, set to be the world’s strongest computed design validation system.

Manufacturers have expelled their effort into mega-scale wind turbine research and production. Mega scale turbines can bring a higher profitability to customers and provide significant savings as one mega scale turbine can replace a dozen smaller ones. Such technology can additionally decrease the complicated installation processes, minimize the maintenance cost and time, and increase the efficiency and performance of the machines.

Mr. John Lavelle, president and CEO of GE’s offshore Wind business, said the agreement and partnership with ORE Catapult is a significant collaboration as it would help accelerate the development of ground-breaking technology into wind turbine engineering. “Traditional testing methods rely on local winds and conditions and would therefore limit testing results. With ORE’s professionalism and expertise, we will be in a better position to adapt our technology to improve the technology performance, reduce unplanned maintenance, increase availability and power output and also create new features to meet customers’ demands,” he continued.

UK Energy and Clean Growth Minister, Claire Perry agreed with GE’s approach to the turbine project. “Through our Industrial Strategy, we will be able to make UK a leader in renewable resource technology and this offshore wind project will gain a large amount of support from the crowd and create more job opportunities for the nation.”

The world’s current largest wind turbine is Denmark’s Vestas’s 8.8MW wind turbine and its internal restructure has increased the capacity by 0.4MW installed in the Scotland EOWDC earlier this year. If GE successfully installs Haliade-X off the coast of England in 2021, this ground-breaking technology will take the throne to be the largest wind turbine installed in the world.

Source: Energy Trend