Breaking the record! 16MW offshore wind turbine "turns wind into treasure" with unique skills

He Liang, a reporter from Science Times

Recently, affected by typhoons "Sura" and "Haikui", strong winds have continued to blow along the coast of Fujian. On September 1, the maximum wind speed at the Three Gorges Fujian Offshore Wind Farm reached 23.56 meters per second. The world's first 16-megawatt offshore wind turbine installed there not only did not "break down", but instead achieved 24-hour full-power operation, generating 384,100 kWh of electricity per day, setting a new world record!

Facing the ravages of typhoons, how does this "giant" with a hub height of 152 meters and a wind sweeping area of ​​about 7 standard football fields manage to not only be fearless of wind and waves, but also ride the wind and turn the wind into treasure? Wang Jianbo, manager of the power operation department of Pingtan Strait Power Generation Co., Ltd., told reporters that in the face of typhoons, the 16MW offshore wind turbine has both "hardware" and "software" wind resistance capabilities.

"In terms of hardware, at the beginning of the design, the R&D team customized the 16MW offshore wind turbine's super-long blades for typhoon resistance in terms of strength, shape, and force." Wang Jianbo said that the swept-back design of the wind turbine blades reduces the wind load with the slender blade shape, and then uses the bending-torsion coupling effect of the super-long flexible blades to effectively unload the wind force on the blades. In addition, the main beam of the 16MW offshore wind turbine blades is made of carbon fiber material, which is 10 times stronger than steel. On the basis of increasing the blade strength, it can reduce the weight by 20%. Therefore, the 16MW offshore wind turbine can withstand a maximum instantaneous wind speed of 75 meters per second, far exceeding the wind speed of 51 meters per second in a super typhoon of level 16.

"In terms of software, the operation and maintenance team has specially formulated a typhoon resistance strategy for offshore wind turbines." Wang Jianbo said that after receiving the typhoon control mode command from the monitoring system, the unit automatically enters the typhoon mode. At this time, if the 10-minute average wind speed is less than 25 meters per second, the unit will operate normally to generate electricity; if the 10-minute average wind speed is greater than 25 meters per second, the unit will reduce the capacity to generate electricity; and when the 10-minute average wind speed is greater than 30 meters per second or the instantaneous wind speed is greater than 35 meters per second, the unit will immediately shut down. It is under this combination of strategies that the 16-megawatt offshore wind turbine can continuously convert the passing typhoon into green electricity.

When a typhoon passes, the wind speed is constantly changing, and the operation mode of the unit also needs to be adjusted in time. Wang Jianbo introduced that before the typhoon arrives, the operation and maintenance personnel will conduct a series of tests such as remote typhoon resistance and unit backup power switching in advance to make adequate preparations for the typhoon. When a typhoon passes, the operation and maintenance personnel will use Beidou communication technology to send signals from the onshore centralized control center, intelligently switch the operation mode, adjust the power supply mode of the 16MW offshore wind turbine and the unit yaw system, and avoid the risks of the typhoon passing to the unit.

In addition, if a 16MW offshore wind turbine wants to take advantage of favorable winds, it needs to accurately predict the changing weather. "When the typhoon swept across the offshore wind farm in Fujian Province of the Three Gorges Group, the newly developed meteorological intelligence application integrated platform came in handy." Wang Jianbo said that with the help of this platform, the meteorological team conducted multi-temporal and spatial scale simulation, early warning and prediction of meteorological elements such as typhoon formation, movement and intensity, thereby optimizing the efficiency of power generation and grid connection and improving the efficiency of meteorological resource utilization of offshore wind farms under extreme weather conditions.