October 19, 2021: -Vestas has announced plans to install a prototype of its 15-megawatt offshore wind turbine at a facility in Denmark.

The company said the prototype, known as V236-15 MW, would be installed in the second half of the year 2022 at a test center in Western Jutland, Denmark. It is expected to begin generating electricity in the fourth quarter of 2022.

The scale of the V236-15 MW is considerable. According to Vestas, it will stand 280-meters tall, with prototype blades that measure 115.5 meters in length. The prototype will be installed onshore to make access more accessible when it comes to testing.

The turbine’s production output is expected to be 80-gigawatt hours a year. Vestas said this would power 20,000 European households, displacing over 38,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in the process.

While Vestas claims its prototype “will be the tallest and most powerful wind turbine in the world once installed,” different companies are developing their massive turbines.

In August, MingYang Smart Energy released details of a massive new offshore wind turbine. Dubbed the MySE 16.0-242, MingYang’s turbine will have a height of 264 meters, a rotor diameter of 242 meters, and a blade length of 118 meters. Its capacity will be 16 MW.

The Chinese company has aimed to install a prototype in 2023 before starting commercial production the year after.

Meanwhile, at the starting of October, GE Renewable Energy said its Haliade-X prototype, installed in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, had begun to operate at 14 MW.

“The ability to produce power from a single turbine means fewer turbines need to be installed at each wind farm,” the company said. “In addition to less capital expenditure, this simplifies operations and maintenance.”

The development of enormous wind turbines has generated excitement in some quarters, but there are undoubted challenges too.