World’s first 12 MW wind turbine on the horizon

GE Renewable Energy has announced its plan to develop the world’s largest and most powerful offshore wind turbine – the 12 MW Haliade-X.

The 12 MW direct drive machine will, based on typical conditions, produce 45% more energy than any other offshore wind turbine, according to GE. The company has announced that it will invest over $400mn over the next three to five years to develop and deploy the machine, which it says has the potential to generate 67 GWh a year and will have a capacity factor of 63% at full power operation.

The turbine is currently being bid for projects in 2021, when GE estimates the first units will be shipped. At 260 m tall the turbine will not be far off the height of the Eiffel Tower, and features a 220 m rotor. It will utilise 107 m long blades manufactured by LM Wind Power – the longest offshore blades to date.

Using larger turbines means fewer are needed for a given size of wind farm, which results in fewer foundations, less capital expenditure across the plant and lower operation and maintenance costs.

GE, whose largest current machine on the market ranks at 6 MW, remained one of the world’s top four onshore wind turbine manufacturers in 2017 – according to figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

BNEF’s Global Wind Turbine Market Shares report for 2017 finds that 47 GW of onshore wind turbines were commissioned globally in 2017, and that the top four manufacturers (in order) are Denmark’s Vestas, Spain’s Siemens Gamesa, China’s Goldwind and the US’ GE – which together accounted for 53% of turbines deployed.

BNEF says that the commissioning of onshore wind turbines fell by 12% in 2017, due to lower activity in China, but predicts that installation rates will increase to reach 55 GW in 2018.

‘In offshore wind, it was a very different story,’ said Tom Harries, Senior Wind Analyst at BNEF. ‘Siemens Gamesa continued to be by far the biggest supplier globally, with 2.7 GW commissioned, with other players such as Sewind of China, MHI Vestas and Senvion of Germany back at around half a gigawatt each.’

GE’s Haliade-X machine is planned to be built in France, a country in which offshore wind costs are continuing to fall. The latest French competitive offshore wind tender resulted in 22 projects, totalling 508 MW, receiving a weighted average price of €65 per MWh. This guaranteed revenue for 20 years is lower than the €82 per MWh previously awarded from the French government under a feed-in tariff scheme.