GE Renewable Energy claimed a new milestone for its Haliade-X wind turbine as the world’s most powerful with a full type certificate after DNV signed off the machine for operation at up to 14.7MW.

The first use of the type certificate will be for the 87 14MW versions destined for the Dogger Bank C phase of the world’s largest offshore wind farm off eastern England, said GE, which is equipping the entire project with Haliade-Xs.

The certification came after testing of the Haliade-X prototype in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, which has been in operation since 2019.

GE Renewable Energy chief technology officer Vincent Schellings said: “Experience is the best teacher, and in the past three years our engineers have learned a great deal about how to maximise the performance of the Haliade-X.

“This full type certification validates our ability to translate those lessons into more performance for customers.”

The Haliade-X’s launch as a 12MW machine in 2018 – first revealed by Recharge – marked a step-change for supersized offshore machines, but GE’s western rivals Siemens Gamesa and Vestas, plus various Chinese players, have since unveiled their own models in the 14-16MW range.

The Haliade-X has also been the subject of patent disputes in several countries between GE and Siemens Gamesa, with the former currently appealing a ruling that locks a key version of the machine out of the US market.