Ming Yang Smart Energy (MYSE) on Friday joined China’s supersize wind turbine race by unveiling a prototype it says can be rated up to 10MW and compete with other giant machines from domestic rivals and foreign OEMs.
MYSE launched an 8MW prototype at its factory in Yangjiang city, Guangdong province, ahead of installation at a local offshore wind farm there next week. The manufacturer said the machine will be offered in the 8-10MW range.
The typhoon-proof turbine will come with a rotor-blade diameter "over 190 metres", the Guangdong-based OEM has previously said.
MYSE's new product marks an acceleration of the firm's previous launch schedule of 2020, as revealed to Recharge by the company's president and chief technology officer Zhang Qiying in an interview in 2018.
Zhang said then that the OEM's 8MW design is "easily" scalable to a 10MW turbine. The eventual size of the next-generation turbine will depend on what the market wants in 2020, he added.
The launch means MYSE becomes the fourth wind OEM in China to offer 8MW+ turbines.
In August, Shanghai Electric Wind (SEW) launched the nation's first 8MW prototype at the firm's factory in Shantou, also Guangdong city. A month later, in an industrial park in Fujian, Goldwind delivered its long-awaited machine as the "first 8MW turbine with China's own intellectual property rights".
MYSE also joins the growing list of Chinese manufacturers with 10MW ambitions.
Dongfang Electric Wind (DEW) took the lead by unveiling China's first double-digit wind turbine in September. A company official told Recharge that the Chengdu-based OEM is also offering an 8MW machine.
Last month, CSIC Haizhuang released another 10MW design, HZ210, boasting a 200-metre rotor-blade diameter. The firm last year already announced it would offer 6.2MW and 8MW turbines, but neither has been readied for production.
The speedy product development is against a backdrop of heated competition among turbine OEMs with ambitions in China’s fast-growing offshore wind sector.
This year alone, China has witnessed the introduction of five new turbine prototypes, with ratings leaping from 7.25MW and 8MW to 10MW. Last year the market was only starting to test the water by putting up 5MW-6.5MW turbines — then the largest domestic machines announced — in China’s pilot Xinghua Bay project.
However, Chinese OEMs will be facing at least one powerful foreign competitor, as GE Renewable Energy has begun to build a Haliade-X turbine factory in Jieyang, Guangdong. The factory is expected to come online around 2021 and start to produce the record-breaking 12MW machine in the second half of that year.
Philippe Kavafyan, CEO of Japanese-Danish OEM MHI Vestas, this week told Recharge in an interview that Western turbine makers could have an edge in the Chinese offshore wind sector thanks to the greater reliability of their machines.
