Society

Wind turbine makers captivated by offshore potentials

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-06-20 14:27

SHANGHAI - The country's leading wind turbine makers are vying with each other to push forward big-capacity wind turbines in a bid to win a slice of China's offshore wind power development.

At the Offshore Wind China 2011, Asia's largest annual offshore wind industrial gathering held from June 15 to 17 in Shanghai, Guodian United Power, China's fourth largest wind turbine maker, announced it would roll out a six-mw prototype for offshore wind farms by the end of the year and would develop 12-mw turbines next year.

Shanghai Electric, the seventh largest turbine maker, said it would produce a five-mw offshore turbine late this year or early next year.

Goldwind, China's second largest turbine maker, said it would produce a six-mw prototype late this year or early next year, and produce six-mw turbines in bulk in 2014.

The wind power branch of China Shipping Industry Corporation, based in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, the 11th largest turbine maker, also edged into the tangled competition, saying it would produce a five-mw prototype in October.

Prior to this, last October, Sinovel, China's largest wind turbine manufacturer, took the lead to produce the country's first doubly-fed five-mw wind turbine. This turbine will be installed in a pilot offshore wind farm in Shanghai in August.

In May, Sinovel produced China's first six-mw wind turbine, and it has now set its sights on developing ten-mw turbines.

Last October, a few days after Sinovel, Xiangtan Electric Machinery(XEMC), based in central Hunan province, produced China's first five-mw direct-drive permanent magnetic offshore wind turbine. By the end of June, XEMC will install a prototype wind farm in the Netherlands and in China's southeastern Fujian province, respectively.

The great mass fervor of leading Chinese wind turbine makers in producing large-capacity offshore wind turbines shows, as industry officials have put it, that China has stepped into the transition period toward developing offshore wind power with five-mw and six-mw turbines.

To date, China's land-based wind farms largely use 1.5-mw turbines.