China surpasses German engineering with world’s tallest wind turbine
Other countries compete to build the tallest skyscraper, or the biggest Ferris wheel. China and Germany are more serious about their engineering: they compete for the prize of having the biggest wind turbine.
One of China’s two leading wind turbine companies, Dongfang Electric, announced on Friday it had completed a key test on the latest machine that, when it goes into service shortly, will break that record.
Standing 340 metres from its base in the Pacific, off the coast of the country’s Fujian province, to the tip of its blades when they rotate to their highest points, it will be the first wind turbine to be taller than the Eiffel Tower.
Dongfang — meaning the East — said it had finished load testing a prototype blade for the turbine, itself 150 metres long. “We’re harnessing the power of tech to plant the seeds of a greener future,” it said in celebration. “Every blade carries a low-carbon dream, ready to catch the wind and grow strong.”
China under President Xi has put huge economic weight on not only an ever-expanding industrial base but also being at the forefront of green technologies.
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With no room for political opposition, and a heavy continuing reliance nationally on coal and other fossil fuels at the same time, there is little of the public debate around wind power that western European companies have faced.
China already makes more than 80 per cent of the world’s solar panels. Its low cost base — unfairly subsidised, according to western rivals — is also undercutting and starting to dominate American and European production in wind power too.
Workers at Dongfang Electric celebrate as they prepare to roll out the record-breaking wind turbine
A worker at the Dongfang factory operates a robotic arm
At present the wind turbine claimed to be the world’s highest was constructed by another Chinese company, Mingyang, and operates off the southern Chinese island of Hainan. Its hub is at the same height as Dongfang’s — 185 metres off the ground — but its blades are a few metres shorter.
A similarly sized turbine is already operating at the site to which the Dongfang blades are believed to be heading, the Fujian Fuzhou Offshore Wind Power Industrial Park.
Its maximum capacity is 18MW of electricity, and the Hainan turbine is 20MW, which the new turbine will surpass by 6MW. According to estimates, that will be enough at average 10 metres per second windspeeds to power 55,000 homes on its own.
Britain’s tallest wind turbines — at the Longhill Burn Wind Farm in West Lothian, Scotland — stand up to 150m tall. The blades reach as high as 200m.
How long any of these three monsters maintain their dominance is unclear. As Germany tries to reclaim its traditional global leadership in engineering — and tries to stave off Chinese competition — its companies are also building higher.
A turbine being designed and built by Gicon, a German conglomerate, will stand at 363 metres from toe to the tip of the vertical blade. It, however, is based on a novel design, in which smaller blades rotate from a 300-metre high lattice structure itself influenced by the design of the Eiffel Tower.
It will, however, be the second highest man-made object in Germany, after the Berlin TV Tower.