Vestas' 15MW Offshore Wind Turbine Prototype Reaches Full Power Rating

Danish offshore wind turbine maker Vestas said Monday that its most powerful wind turbine, the V236-15.0 MW prototype, stretching 280 meters into the air, had reached 15 MW nominal power rating.

"The prototype was installed in December 2022 and produced its first kWh of power shortly after.  Since then, the turbine has been through a production ramp-up period according to the planned testing and verification campaign. And last week, just three months after the final installation, it reached the rated power of 15 MW for the very first time," Vestas said.

According to Vestas, the next step of the extensive test and verification program is to run unattended operation followed by multiple test disciplines like power curve and loads campaigns.

While the 15MW turbine is still in prototype phase, the company has been selected as a preferred supplier of the 15MW units for several offshore projects.

Most recently, Vestas said Friday it had signed a preferred supplier agreement to supply its giant 15MW offshore wind turbines for a floating wind project in South Korea.

Vestas did not say who the client was. It did say that the floating offshore wind project would have a capacity of 495 MW.

Vestas first introduced the giant 15 MW offshore wind turbine in February 2021.

The company said at the time the turbine would have a swept area exceeding 43,000 m² and deliver "industry-leading performance and move the boundaries of wind energy production to around 80 GWh/year."

This is, Vestas said in February 2021, enough to power around 20,000 European households and save more than 38,000 tonnes of CO2, which is the equivalent of removing 25,000 passenger cars from the road every year.

In February, RWE and Northland Power selected Vestas as the preferred supplier for their up to 1.6-gigawatt (GW) cluster of four offshore wind farm sites in the German North Sea.

A minimum of 104 15 MW Vestas offshore wind turbines (Type: V236-15.0 MW) will be installed north of the island of Juist.

The company has also been selected as a preferred supplier, all for the V236-15.0 MW, for 1.1 GW Inch Cape offshore wind farm in Scotland, for the 2.1 GW Empire Wind 1 and Empire Wind 2 offshore wind projects in New York, USA, 1.3 GW MunmuBaram floating offshore wind project in South Korea,  for the 1.5 GW Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind project in New Jersey, and 900 MW He Dreiht offshore wind project in the German North Sea.