It doesn’t look all that out of place, standing in a field of other, lesser goliaths, but this MingYang Smart Energy MySE 16-260 is the largest ever connected to the grid. The “engine room” and generator housed in the hub on top of its 152-m tower weigh in at a gargantuan 385 tons, and each of its three 123-m blades adds another 54 tons, hanging off one side of the generator shaft.
Every time it completes a full revolution, it sweeps about 50,000 sq m of air (that’s seven-odd soccer fields in the internationally accepted layman’s units), and sends up to 34.2 kWh of energy into the Chinese power system. Annually, it’s expected to contribute about 66 gigawatt-hours.
This demonstration unit sits in the Fujian offshore wind farm in the Taiwan Strait, where it’ll take advantage of a natural wind tunnel effect. According to the Three Gorges Group, this location experiences level 7 “near gale” conditions with winds exceeding 51 km/h more than 200 days each year.
It’s designed to withstand winds up to 287 km/h – that leaves a margin over the most violent conditions ever measured in the Western North Pacific: Typhoon Tip, which featured sustained winds of 260 km/h in 1979.
According to the newatlas
