China Three Gorges Deploys World's Largest Single-Unit Floating Offshore Wind Turbine, a 16 MW Platform 70 Kilometres Out to Sea

Overview

China Three Gorges Corporation anchored the world’s largest single-unit floating offshore wind turbine in the South China Sea on May 2, 2026, deploying a 16 megawatt platform more than 70 kilometres off the coast of Yangjiang in Guangdong Province. The installation, known as the Sanxia Linghang — or Three Gorges Pilot — reaches a blade tip height of over 270 metres, sweeps a rotor area equivalent to roughly seven football fields, and is expected to generate approximately 44.65 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, according to Offshore Wind Biz.

The project represents the first time a floating wind turbine of this size has been installed in open-ocean conditions — more than 50 metres of water depth — rather than at an onshore or nearshore testing facility.

What We Know

The turbine sits atop a semi-submersible platform measuring 80.8 metres in length and 91 metres in width and displacing approximately 24,100 tonnes, as reported by Interesting Engineering. Its rotor spans 252 metres across and the swept area covers roughly the equivalent of seven football fields. The mooring system uses nine suction anchors combined with high-performance polyester mooring lines — the first application of such polyester cables in China’s offshore wind sector — and an active ballast system deployed for the first time in the Chinese offshore wind industry.

Pan Hongguan, an offshore wind engineer at China Three Gorges Corporation’s Guangdong Branch, described the rationale for the hybrid mooring design: the system “combines polyester cable and anchor chain, which is like adding a ‘spring’ to the middle of the system, to deliver superior mechanical performance,” according to Interesting Engineering.

The platform was fully assembled at Tieshan Port in Beihai in China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and towed through the Qiongzhou Strait to its operating site, where it was positioned using the Wudongde, described as China’s first integrated deep-sea wind installation vessel. The structure is engineered to withstand wave heights exceeding 20 metres and wind speeds of up to 73 metres per second, making it designed to survive super-typhoon conditions, as detailed by Offshore Wind Biz.

The installation also features a 66 kV dynamic subsea cable with a wave-shaped design, which the developer says is a first for the Chinese offshore wind sector.

Scale and Cost Progress

The Three Gorges Pilot delivers nearly three times the generating capacity of China Three Gorges Corporation’s prior floating wind unit — the Sanxia Yinling, a 5.5 megawatt platform commissioned at the same Yangjiang site in 2021 — while cutting the cost per installed kilowatt by more than 50 per cent, according to Offshore Wind Biz. That cost trajectory matters because floating wind remains substantially more expensive than fixed-bottom installations, and reaching price parity with conventional offshore wind is widely regarded as the sector’s central challenge.

All key components — including the mooring cables, turbine gearboxes, and ballast control systems — were produced domestically, continuing a pattern of Chinese supply-chain localisation that has transformed the broader offshore wind market.

Context: A Crowded Record Book

The “world’s largest” claim requires some precision. At least two other Chinese turbines hold competing records. Mingyang Smart Energy deployed its OceanX platform — a dual-turbine floating system with a combined capacity of 16.6 MW — in late 2024, making it the most powerful floating platform by total output, per Offshore Wind Biz. Separately, CRRC installed its 20 MW “Qihang” prototype at a land-based testing facility in Dongying, Shandong in January 2025, but that unit has not yet been deployed at sea, according to Offshore Wind Biz.

The Three Gorges Pilot’s distinction is therefore specific: it is the largest single-rotor floating wind turbine operating in actual offshore deep-water conditions. European floating turbines, including Vestas units deployed in France as The Machine Herald previously reported, operate in the 10 MW range per unit.

What We Don’t Know

Several details remain unconfirmed. The project has not disclosed a commissioning date or a timeline for first grid connection and commercial power delivery. The cost per megawatt-hour of electricity generated — a figure that would clarify how competitive floating wind has become against fixed-bottom installations — has not been made public. The long-term operational performance of the new mooring design and active ballast system under sustained typhoon-season conditions has not been demonstrated, as Live Science notes this is explicitly described as a deep-water test. Whether the cost-reduction gains observed here will hold when deploying fleets rather than a single demonstration unit is also unknown.

Analysis

The Three Gorges Pilot is less a commercial product launch than an engineering demonstration, but it is a consequential one. Floating wind is essential for tapping the deepwater resources that fixed-bottom turbines cannot reach — including much of the South China Sea, the US Pacific Coast, Japan, and the Mediterranean — and the pace of progress from 5.5 MW to 16 MW in a single turbine generation, achieved at more than half the per-kilowatt cost, indicates the technology is maturing faster than many Western forecasters have projected.

China’s simultaneous deployment of competing floating platforms from different developers — CTG, Mingyang, and CRRC — at or near the same test site reflects a state-backed strategy of parallel development that has previously accelerated commercialisation in solar panels, lithium-ion batteries, and fixed-bottom offshore wind. If the same pattern holds, the current demonstration phase could give way to commercial project approvals within a few years.