Renewable energy: giant wind turbines installed at sea

Anicet Mbida 6:53 am, August 30, 2021

The innovation of the day are giant wind turbines installed at sea. A technique that avoids distorting the landscape.

And in this area, we are currently witnessing a race for gigantism.

So far, the record has been held by a General Electric wind turbine with 100 m blades.

You imagine ?

It is the length of a football field that turns in the air.

In a few months, it will be beaten by a Siemens wind turbine one meter larger.

But it is the Chinese of MingYang who have just put everyone in agreement by announcing a new record: a wind turbine 260 m high (the height of the third floor of the Eiffel Tower), with blades 112 meters long. which cover the equivalent of six football fields.

A single wind turbine would be enough to supply a city of 20,000 inhabitants.

While on average today we need six for 12,000 people.

The logic is simple: rather than increasing the number of wind turbines, we put only one, huge, much more powerful.

In addition, it is installed in the open sea (we no longer see it, it is less annoying) and we take advantage of winds that are both more powerful and more regular.

France has also announced an entire offshore wind development plan.

Many feel that we are very late.

France has the second largest maritime domain on the planet.

However, we still have no offshore wind turbines in operation.

The United Kingdom is the world leader with a production of 11 gigawatts, the equivalent of 11 nuclear reactors.

But several projects are underway in Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Brieuc or Belle-Île-en-Mer.

There, they will be floating wind turbines, less expensive to install.

We remind you: a wind turbine at sea produces twice as much electricity as on land.

By using gigantic models, France could quickly catch up.