Construction milestone for China's first deep-sea floating wind power platform

Aerial photo taken on June 12, 2020 shows workers installing an offshore wind turbine at a wind farm in Fuqing, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua/Lin Shanchuan)

BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's first deep-sea floating wind power platform, invested in and built by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), has completed its floating body assembly, Tuesday's edition of Science and Technology Daily reported.

It marks an important step in the construction of the world's first offshore wind power project with a water depth of over 100 meters and an offshore distance of over 100 kilometers, said the newspaper.

The platform will be installed in an offshore oil field 136 kilometers from Wenchang, in China's southern island province of Hainan -- where strong winds and big ocean waves posed a huge challenge to the design of the wind power platform.

According to the newspaper, after the project is put into operation, the electricity generated by the turbine will be connected to the power grid of the offshore oilfield group for oil and gas production, with an annual power generation capacity of 22 million kilowatt hours -- saving 7.73 million cubic meters of fuel gas and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 22,000 tonnes.

Li Nan, a senior researcher with the CNOOC, said that floating wind power has broad application prospects. It can be used not only for local consumption and power supply for offshore facilities, but also to develop marine pastures, seawater hydrogen production, marine tourism and marine mineral resources.