Offshore Wind Turbine in China: Overview, Research Trends, and Challenges

Abstract

Abstract China's wind energy resources are abundant. Its exploitable wind energy reserves are about 1 billion kW(Burrows 2020). Among them, the offshore wind energy reserves that can be developed and utilized are about 750 million kW(Burrows 2020). Historically, the price of offshore wind turbines has been significantly high. However, its cost decline is accelerated due to significant technological advancements. Recently, offshore wind power can compete with China's coal and nuclear power in terms of cost. This study aims to provide a detailed review of the current status, research trends, and challenges of offshore wind turbine development in China. Currently, the offshore wind turbine with the largest single-unit capacity released in China has reached 8 MW and will soon enter the 10 MW era. The most common offshore wind turbines in China are Gravity-based, Monopile, Jacket, and Tripods offshore wind turbines in shallow water, and SPAR buoy, Tension leg platforms, and semi-submersible in deep water. This paper first included an overview of these offshore wind turbines’ system functionalities, features, strengths, weaknesses, and case studies. We then focus on the critical technologies for developing offshore wind turbines in China. The current technology status of the major operators is also summarized, representing the most advanced technology on the market. At last, we briefly summarized the future research directions of offshore wind turbines. In this study, we first gave an overview of offshore wind turbines currently on the Chinese market with several case studies. From these case studies, we recognized the critical technologies needed for the further development of offshore wind turbines. These technologies include hydraulic pitch technology, optimization design of the supporting structure for large-scale offshore wind turbines, offshore wind farm layout optimization, offshore power transmission, and intelligent operation and maintenance technologies. This study presented and analyzed these key technologies’ technical value, significance, development trends, and application scenarios. This paper introduced offshore wind turbines and related case studies in various fields with different operational conditions in China. We extracted and summarized the critical knowledge and technologies from these case studies for current practices and future work, facilitating operators to understand and develop these technologies efficiently.