The photonis sourced from popsci.com
The wind farm utilisation, due to its successful location, will be from 43% to 49%, which exceeds the standard level for the industry. For example, in the United States in 2021, the average utilisation of wind turbines was 35%, according to the Energy Information Administration of the US Department of Energy (IEA). Construction of the farm will begin in 2025. If put into operation, it will more than double the capacity of Jiuquan Wind, the largest project to date, which is under implementation in Gansu province, the northeast of China. Its current capacity is 8 GW, but in the coming years it is supposed to reach 20 GW.
The project in the Taiwan Strait will strengthen China’s position as a world leader in the development of the offshore wind power industry. According to the World Forum Offshore Wind, in the 2022 first half, China provided 75% of the global commissioning of offshore wind turbines (5.1 GW out of 6.8 GW), while its share in the structure of the operating offshore wind facilities reached 45% (24.9 GW out of 54.9 GW). China is also the leader in terms of construction of new offshore wind turbines. In the world by the end of 2022 at the stage of construction there were 11.9 GW of capacity of offshore wind farms: 3.2 GW – in China, 2.5 GW – in Taiwan (China), 2.3 GW – the Netherlands and 3.9 GW – all other countries. The number of wind farms under construction is similar (10 in China, 4 in Taiwan, 1 in the Netherlands and 14 in all other countries).
Despite a higher average utilisation of the offshore wind farms, the offshore wind power industry is still inferior to the onshore in terms of development: if the increase in onshore wind farm capacities in 2021 was 72 GW, then in the offshore – “only” 21 GW, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). One of the obstacles is still difficulty to use standard wind turbines at great depths. Companies World Wide Wind and T-Omega have recently proposed solutions to this problem: the former designed a wind turbine with a low gravity centre and a vertical axis, and the latter developed a wind turbine with four towers able to remain stable above water thanks to their “pyramid” design and square base.
