The developers of the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts have just announced that they’ll be using GE wind turbines — specifically, the GE Haliade-X.
This will earn them the distinction of being the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the United States to use the largest wind turbine in the world.
That turbine recently got a capacity upgrade, from a world-leading 12 megawatts (MW) to a world-leading-by-even-more 13 MW.
The upgraded turbine has –
- More power — A 13 MW turbine would be 37% more powerful than the 9.5 MW turbine.
- Greater yield — 13 MW means that a turbine going full out could produce 312 megawatt-hours (MWh) in a day.
- Long blades — At 107 meters, each blade of the 12 or 13 MW turbine (they’re the same size) is long enough to stretch on a football (American football) field from one goalpost to just shy of the other.
One spin of a Haliade-X 13 MW could power a UK household for more than 2 days.
Upgrading to a turbine that size has a few important implications for the developers as: –
- One needs fewer turbines.
- Fewer turbines mean commensurately fewer turbine sites, fewer foundations thus fewer installations.
- They would require less area.
The Haliade-X 13 MW offshore wind turbine will be used in the first two phases of UK’s Dogger Bank Wind Farm, with a total of 190 units to be installed starting in 2023.
This will mark the first installation of the world’s most powerful wind turbine in operation to date at what will be the world’s biggest offshore wind farm.
This is a PRNewswire Feed; edited by Clean-Future Team