GE’s flagship Haliade-X offshore wind turbine has passed its latest operational milestone, with the record-setting 14MW prototype marking two years running in the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
The unit – first commissioned in November 2019 at 12MW and since uprated to 13MW and 14MW – has some 5.6GW of order commitments from developers in different regions around the world.
“Over the two years, we have learned a lot from operating the prototype intensively in a windy and harsh environment,” said Jan Kjaersgaard, GE Renewable Energy’s offshore wind CEO, who was recently named to succeed John Lavelle to run the division.
“We continue to innovate and develop our Haliade-X technology, and with 5.6GW of customer commitments so far, it is clear that we are addressing our customers’ needs, enabling them to deliver clean energy to consumers around the world.”
The Haliade-X concept – first revealed by Recharge in 2018 – has received multiple certifications, in advance of equipping two offshore projects that have already reached financial close, the UK’s giant 3.6GW Dogger Bank, the world’s largest offshore wind project, the 800MW Vineyard Wind 1, the first utility-scale offshore wind array in the US.
The turbine’s 220-metre-diameter rotor – made up of 107-metre-long blades from GE-owned LM Wind Power – turns a direct-drive and permanent-magnet-generator transmission system with a 63% gross capacity factor. One 14MW turbine can generate up to 74GWh a year, saving up to 52,000 metric tons of C02.
All the electricity generated by the Haliade-X – in 2019 named one of the “Best Inventions of the Year” by Time magazine – is being used by Dutch utility Eneco.
