China’ First Superconducting Wind Turbine Field-tested

The new technology will reduce generator weight by 40%.

The members of EcoSwing Chinese consortium have developed a full-fledged superconducting generator designed for wind turbines. The generator capacity is 3.6 MW. The first tests of the new type of turbine were conducted in Denmark.

The demand for wind energy is continuously growing making engineers build increasingly larger wind turbines. However, the traditional approach can no longer provide sufficient capacity for the wind turbines, as generators have got to be too heavy to be installed on turbines producing 10 MW or more.

Chinese EcoSwing Group has come up with a new solution: a high-temperature superconducting generator.

As part of technology testing, the generator was connected to a 3.6 MW Envision GC-1 wind turbine. The testing lasted for 650 hours, during which the turbine continuously supplied electric power to the network.

With EcoSwing technology, the weight of windmills can be reduced by 40%. During the testing the mechanism proved to be reliable: it can withstand gusty winds, power outages and other impacts.