Ming Yang commissions 16-MW floating wind turbine for CNOOC oil field

CNOOC Anlan operates in 136 metres of water and supplies power to an offshore oilfield.

China-based Ming Yang Smart Energy has commissioned the CNOOC Anlan, a 16-megawatt (MW) tension leg platform (TLP) floating wind turbine supplying power to the Lufeng offshore oilfield, 136 kilometres off Guangdong.

The turbine operates in 136 metres of water and has a total height of more than 307 metres. Its MySE 16-260 turbine has a hub height of 155 metres and a 260-metre rotor covering 53,000 square metres.

The turbine is expected to generate 54 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity a year, avoiding about 35,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and 15,000 cubic metres of fuel oil use.

The project uses a harbour assembly and single-tow deployment method. The turbine was assembled on the TLP floater at the quayside before being towed offshore as one unit.

The company said the MySE 16-260 is designed for 50-year extreme typhoon conditions, drawing on experience from more than 3,000 typhoon-resistant turbines.

The system uses dual backup power, active yaw strategies, and redundancy measures for secondary typhoon landfall scenarios.

The turbine also uses frequency-decoupling and active load-reduction control systems that process data from floater motion, nacelle vibration and wind vectors.

The company said the controls reduce tower extreme loads by more than 15% and increase annual energy production by more than 2%.

A three-tier weight management system covers incoming components, suppliers and assembly operations. Ming Yang said this keeps nacelle mass within a 1% tolerance, supporting TLP buoyancy and offshore installation.

“The semi-direct drive train uses a two-point support layout optimised for floating motion, whilst carbon-fibre pultruded spar caps cut blade weight by roughly 10%, improving aerodynamic capture and reducing overall system loading,” the company said.

The turbine's monitoring system uses fibre Bragg grating load sensing, millimetre-wave tip-clearance radar, vibration and oil analysis, bolt preload tracking, and salt spray and lightning monitoring.

Ming Yang said the system can increase availability by 10% and reduce maintenance costs by up to 15%.

The CNOOC Anlan follows Ming Yang's 7.25MW CNOOC Guanlan semi-submersible floating wind turbine. The Guanlan unit has generated more than 22GWh and recorded 99.94% annual availability.

Four of China's seven operating floating wind turbines use Ming Yang technology across semi-submersible, twin-rotor, and TLP platforms.