China has completed a floating offshore converter station that is unusual even by the country’s standards: a 2 GW platform designed to connect two large wind farms to the national grid. The project, called ”Haifeng Heart,” has already been shipped toward the coastal waters of Yangjiang, where the final installation phase will begin.
At a time when offshore wind developers are pushing farther from shore, the engineering choice is obvious. Moving electricity over long submarine cables as alternating current wastes too much power, so the industry keeps leaning on high-voltage direct current systems to cut losses and unlock deeper waters. China is simply doing it at a bigger scale, and earlier than many rivals.
A 2 GW platform for two wind farms
The floating offshore converter station will serve the ”Three Gorges Yangjiang Qingzhou V” and ”Qingzhou VII” offshore wind projects. Once operating, it is expected to send about 6 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable electricity into the grid each year, turning a single offshore hub into a major piece of power infrastructure rather than just another support platform.
Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries, better known as ZPMC, designed and built the system. The platform measures 44 meters high, 85.5 meters long, and 82.5 meters wide, with a mass of 25,000 tons – numbers that explain why this was treated more like heavy industrial assembly than conventional shipbuilding.
Six records in one project
ZPMC says the project set six industry records, including the largest single-unit transmission capacity at 2,000 MW, the highest-voltage flexible direct-current transmission system for offshore wind, and the first integrated use of AC and DC transmission in one offshore wind project. It also introduced 525 kV submarine DC cables for ultra-long-distance green power transport.
- Transmission capacity: 2,000 MW
- Connected wind farms: two projects with combined installed capacity of 2 GW
- Platform size: 44 meters high, 85.5 meters long, 82.5 meters wide
- Mass: 25,000 tons
- Submarine cable voltage: 525 kV