On July 12, the departure ceremony of the world’s largest single-capacity 16.6 MW floating wind power platform “OceanX” drawing reviewed and surveyed by China Classification Society (CCS) was held at CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company Limited. Han Xuechao, Deputy General Manager of CCS Guangzhou Branch, was invited to attend the ceremony.

The floating foundation of “OceanX” platform, 120.24m long and 103.45m wide, has a total displacement of about 15,000 tons, a towing design draft of 5.5m and a working draft of 15m. Unlike common offshore floating wind power platforms, “OceanX” platform consists of a “Y”-shaped floating foundation that floats on the sea surface, as well as three rugby-shaped buoys, one “V”-shaped tower, and two wind turbines installed on the foundation, with two sets of huge wind blades are arranged in parallel. It is the world’s first dual wind turbine floating offshore wind power platform with a total installed capacity of 16.6MW, with the highest point of the impeller of 219m, the maximum width in the air of about 369m, and an sweeping area over 52,000m2, which is equivalent to 7 standardized football fields.

This platform is independently developed by Mingyang Group, and the floating foundation is built by CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company Limited. As a key component for floating wind turbines to survive in deep seas, the floating foundation of  “OceanX” platform is different from the traditional steel structure floating foundation, which consists of three buoys, concrete arms, and connectors. Among them, the concrete arms adopt ultra-high performance concrete materials with a compressive strength of over 115 Mpa for fabrication of the floating foundation. This concrete material has a strength about four times that of ordinary concrete, which significantly increases the bearing capacity of the floating foundation structure. At the same time, the floating foundation adopts a prefabricated structure of prestressed high-strength concrete to achieve modular design and batch manufacturing, which greatly reduces the construction cost of the foundation.

It is estimated that “OceanX” platform can generate an average of about 54 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year after being officially put into operation, which can meet the daily electricity consumption for 30,000 households of a family of three people one year. This offshore wind turbine design can effectively reduce the cost per kilowatt, sea area, operation and maintenance costs, and provide a highly distinctive creative solutions for the construction of deep sea wind farms.

CCS has attached great importance to the design and construction of this project. In order to guarantee the successful implementation of the project, CCS has organized multiple special seminars with experts within the system to provide valuable technical support to the owner and construction plant with professional technical capabilities and rigorous service attitude, and fully ensure the smooth progress of the project.

After this platform is launched, CCS will continue to complete the offshore docking of the “OceanX” platform, and actively cooperate with the owner to complete various offshore commissioning projects, so as to ensure that this project is connected to the grid with high quality to contribute to the development of offshore wind power in China.