China News Service, Fangchenggang, December 4 (Zhai Liqiang) On the sea surface about 16 kilometers from the coast, 83 wind turbines over a hundred meters tall stand majestically at Site A of the Fangchenggang Offshore Wind Power Demonstration Project in Guangxi, their blades turning slowly. As Guangxi’s first offshore wind power project, it has now officially commenced operation. Furthermore, with the breakthrough of being China’s first offshore wind power project with fully embedded rock foundations, it provides a replicable solution for wind power development in China’s rocky seabed areas.
Recently, media representatives from over ten countries including Canada, South Korea, the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, Romania, and Papua New Guinea visited Fangchenggang to explore this “offshore energy fortress.”
Zhang Jinfa, Deputy General Manager of Guangxi Guangtou Beibu Gulf Offshore Wind Power Co., Ltd., introduced that the Fangchenggang Offshore Wind Power Demonstration Project, led by Guangxi Energy Group, is located in the sea area south of Fangchenggang. It includes two sites, A and F, with a total installed capacity of 1.8 million kilowatts and a total investment of approximately 24.5 billion yuan (RMB, same below). Among them, the Site A project can provide about 2.06 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually, meeting the basic electricity needs of over 2 million urban households, saving about 620,000 tons of standard coal consumption, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 1.64 million tons.
With a sea area of about 40,000 square kilometers, a mainland coastline of over 1,600 kilometers, and an average wind speed at a height of 130 meters offshore reaching over 7.5 meters per second, Guangxi possesses unique advantages for developing offshore wind power. However, a single offshore wind turbine can weigh between 1,000 and 2,000 tons, making it no easy task to “stand firm” on the windy and rough seas.
It is understood that the area where Site A of the Fangchenggang Offshore Wind Power Demonstration Project is located features a rocky seabed. Construction under such geographical conditions lacked mature construction techniques and experience both domestically and internationally. During the construction period, the project team, after repeated demonstrations, innovatively adopted a suspended pile-driving method to ensure the positional accuracy and verticality of the steel pipe piles; innovatively used high-tonnage impact drills and freshwater slurry-making processes to improve drilling efficiency; and innovatively moved the offshore grouting of steel pipe piles to factory grouting to enhance construction efficiency. The application of these innovative technologies ensured the high-quality and high-efficiency completion of all embedded rock drilling construction, providing a solution for domestic offshore wind power embedded rock construction. It set multiple industry records in China’s offshore wind power sector, including the fastest completion of a single turbine’s embedded rock foundation in 20 days, the fastest installation of a single turbine in 40 hours, and the first project section achieving full-capacity grid connection three months ahead of schedule.
Zhang Jinfa introduced that with the deepening advancement of the project, multiple offshore wind power equipment manufacturing industry projects, including those from Mingyang Smart Energy, Envision Energy, CSIC Heavy Machinery Group, and Sinohydro Bureau 4, have all been established in Guangxi. In 2024 alone, it has driven industrial investment of about 20 billion yuan.
China’s “14th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development” points out the focus on building five major offshore wind power bases, including the Beibu Gulf. According to the “Guangxi Energy Development 14th Five-Year Plan,” Guangxi has planned a total of nine offshore wind farm zones with a total planned installed capacity of 23.5 million kilowatts.
Data shows that as of December 2024, China’s cumulative installed and grid-connected offshore wind power capacity has exceeded 40 million kilowatts, firmly ranking first globally. A relatively complete offshore wind power technology chain and industrial chain, from development and design, production and manufacturing to construction, operation, and maintenance management, has been formed.
In recent years, Guangxi has promoted the accelerated rise of emerging industries such as offshore wind power and marine engineering equipment manufacturing, forming an innovation chain of “technological breakthrough—project implementation—industrial agglomeration—benefit transformation,” building momentum and capability for Guangxi to construct a national comprehensive energy security guarantee zone and a strong maritime region. (End)
