A breakthrough in renewable energy has just been anchored in the sea — literally. While many are still discussing the future of the green transition, Chinese engineers have gone ahead and secured it on a floating platform with no equivalent in the world. Here is the story — as reported by SSTV+.

Last Saturday, in the waters off Yangjiang Island in Guangdong Province, southern China, the world's largest floating wind turbine with a capacity of 16 megawatts was installed. It is named the "Three Gorges Pilot Project" — after the China Three Gorges Corporation, abbreviated as CTG in English.

This floating wind turbine consists of three main parts: a 16‑megawatt ultra‑high‑power wind turbine, a semi‑submersible floating platform, and a brand‑new mooring system. The maximum blade tip height exceeds 270 metres, and the rotor diameter reaches 252 metres. The swept area of the blades is equivalent to seven standard football pitches.

Unlike traditional bottom‑fixed turbines that are physically connected to the seabed, this unit is mounted on a semi‑submersible floating platform. Its length is 80.82 metres, its width is 91 metres, and its displacement is 24,100 tonnes. The platform is secured by nine suction anchors. Domestically produced high‑performance polyester fibre cables and anchor chains are also used for mooring and positioning on the seabed.

To withstand harsh marine conditions, the engineering team developed and, for the first time in China, applied a new mooring system, a dynamic monitoring system, an active ballasting system, and dynamic submarine cables with a voltage of 66 kilovolts. This was stated by Pang Hongguan, a marine wind power engineer at the Guangdong Branch of China Three Gorges Corporation. According to Pang, the new mooring system combines a polyester cable with an anchor chain. This is like adding a "spring" into the middle of the system and provides excellent mechanical performance.

The "Three Gorges Pilot Project" wind turbine was fully assembled at the Tieshan Port in Beihai, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, southern China. It then arrived at the target sea area, located more than 70 kilometres off the coast of Yangjiang, after a long towed voyage through the Qiongzhou Strait — the strait that connects the island province of Hainan in southern China with the mainland province of Guangdong.

Once operational, the wind turbine is expected to generate approximately 44.65 million kilowatt‑hours of clean energy annually. This is enough to fully meet the yearly electricity needs of 24,000 households.