In 2018, GE unveiled its Haliade-X turbine, and it has since been the largest and most powerful offshore wind turbine in the world. At 853 feet tall and with a rotor measuring 722 feet across, a single rotation of its blades can power a home for two days (that’s a home in the UK, not the US; homes here tend to be bigger energy hogs). Last year, the Haliade-X prototype located in the Netherlands set a new world record by generating 312 megawatt-hours of continuous power in one day.
But the record-setting turbine is about to get dethroned by a new, even bigger and more powerful arrival. China’s MingYang Smart Energy Group this week announced development of its MySE 16.0-242, a 16-megawatt turbine that can reportedly power 20,000 homes. Standing 866 feet tall, the turbine only has a few feet on the Haliade-X’s height, but its rotor is the differentiator at 794 feet across. Each blade is 387 feet long, and their rotation will sweep an area bigger than six soccer fields.