Siemens Gamesa has reportedly told customers of plans to produce a 21MW offshore wind turbine towards the end of this decade.
A Bloomberg news story cites anonymous sources, reigniting the global “turbines arms race”, where development work into bigger machines has stalled in recent years due to supply chain squeezes and poor financial performance of many western turbine makers.
Recently Chinese manufacturer Dongfang installed an 18MW offshore wind turbine with a diameter of 260 metres.
Siemens Gamesa had received €30m in EU funding for testing what had been described as “the world’s most powerful wind turbine prototype” at the National Test Centre for Large Wind Turbines at Osterild, in Denmark, with no details provided on size or commercialisation timing.
Siemens Gamesa told reNEWS that the installation in Osterild, is a test facility partly funded by the European Commission.
“We will only decide whether we will ultimately install a new product in a commercial project after careful testing.
“However, we fundamentally believe in the offshore market and the expansion of capacities at sea must be implemented quickly and consistently to reach the ambitious climate targets.
“Our 14MW turbine has everything it needs for that.”