World's Largest Hybrid Drive Wind Turbine Has 387-Ft Long Blades, Can Power 20,000 Homes

23 Aug 2021, 
by Cristina Mircea 

With mankind looking to make the transition toward cleaner, sustainable energy solutions, more and more companies choose to focus their attention on offshore wind power. MingYang Smart Energy is one of them and has recently announced what seems to be the world’s largest hybrid drive wind turbine.

 
It is called MySE 16.0-242 and according to the Chinese company, its blades are 387 ft long (118 meters) and it features a swept area the size of six soccer fields. The wind turbine has a 794-ft (242 m) diameter rotor and a nameplate capacity of 16MW.

Its nacelle weighs less than 37 tons per MW, which is impressively low and helps with more efficient use of the tower and foundation construction. That also means lower costs in materials. Both the MV-transformer as well as all the power electronics are located up-tower into the nacelle, making the wind turbine more convenient in terms of maintenance and cabling. This is the first model made by the Chinese company with this kind of placement of the components.

MingYang claims a single one of these turbines can generate 80,000 MWh of electricity per year, which is enough to power over 20,000 households in need of electricity.

In addition to having a lifespan of 25 years, the colossal turbine is also an environmentally friendly energy solution, as it can eliminate over 1.6 million tons of CO2 emissions during the two and a half decades when it is expected to be in operation.

Qiying Zhang, President and CTO of Ming Yang Smart Energy, claims the new turbine is an apt illustration of the three essential drivers to technology evolution: demand, combination, and iteration.

A prototype of the new MySE 16.0-242 wind turbine is scheduled for launch in 2022 and commercial production is set for the first half of 2024.