- 2025-12-12
Fangchenggang Offshore Wind Power Project Achieves Full Capacity Operation
On the sea surface about 16 kilometers away from the coast, 83 wind turbines over 100 meters tall, each with a blade rotating slowly, stand majestically at Site A of the Guangxi Fangchenggang Offshore Wind Power Demonstration Project. As the first offshore wind power project in Guangxi, it has now officially gone into operation. With the breakthrough of being the first full-rock foundation offshore wind power project in the country, it provides a replicable "Guangxi solution" for the development of wind power in rocky sea areas in China.
On December 1st, media representatives from over 10 countries including Canada, South Korea, the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, Romania, and Papua New Guinea visited Fangchenggang to explore this "offshore energy fortress" in person.
Zhang Jinfa, the deputy general manager of Guangxi Guotong Beibu Gulf Offshore Wind Power Co., Ltd., introduced that the Fangchenggang Offshore Wind Power Demonstration Project was led by Guangxi Energy Group for development. It is located in the sea area to the south of Fangchenggang and includes two sites, A and F. The installed capacity is 1.8 million kilowatts, with a total investment of approximately 24.5 billion yuan (RMB, the same below). Among them, the A site 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 coal consumption, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 1.64 million tons.
Approximately 40,000 square kilometers of sea area, over 1,600 kilometers of mainland coastline, and an average wind speed of over 7.5 meters per second at a height of 130 meters in the offshore area give Guangxi unique advantages for the development of offshore wind power. However, each offshore wind turbine can weigh up to 1,000 to 2,000 tons, and it is not easy to "stand firm" in the rough sea conditions.
It is known that the A site of the Fangchenggang Offshore Wind Power Demonstration Project is located on a rocky seabed. Under such geographical conditions, there are no mature construction techniques or experiences available both domestically and internationally. During the construction period, the project team conducted repeated research and innovationally adopted the suspended pile planting method to ensure the accuracy of the position of the steel pipe piles and the verticality of the pile bodies; they also innovatively used large-tonnage impact drills and freshwater slurry preparation techniques to improve the drilling efficiency; and they innovatively moved the steel pipe piles from the offshore site to the factory for grouting, thereby enhancing the construction efficiency. The application of these innovative technologies ensured the high-quality and efficient completion of all rock-buried drilling construction, providing the "Guangxi solution" for domestic offshore wind power rock-buried construction and creating multiple industry records such as the fastest 20-day completion of a single wind turbine rock-buried foundation, the fastest 40-hour installation of one wind turbine, and the first segment completing full capacity grid connection ahead of schedule by 3 months in the domestic offshore wind power field.
Zhang Jinfa introduced that as the project progresses, multiple offshore wind power equipment manufacturing industries such as Mingyang Intelligent, Yanshou Energy, China Ship Heavy Industry, and China Water Fourth Bureau have all been established in Guangxi. In 2024 alone, these industries are expected to drive about 20 billion yuan in industrial investment.
The Chinese "14th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development" states that key construction will be carried out in five offshore wind power bases including the Beibu Gulf; according to the "Guangxi Energy Development '14th Five-Year Plan'," Guangxi has planned a total of 9 offshore wind farm areas with a total planned installed capacity of 23.5 million kilowatts.
Data shows that as of December 2024, China has cumulatively built and connected over 40 million kilowatts of offshore wind power, ranking first globally, forming a relatively complete technical chain and industrial chain from development and design to production and manufacturing, construction and installation, operation and management.
In recent years, Guangxi has been led by scientific and technological innovation and supported by major projects, promoting the acceleration of emerging industries such as offshore wind power and marine engineering equipment manufacturing, forming an innovation chain of "technology breakthrough - project implementation - industrial agglomeration - benefit transformation", which is empowering Guangxi to build a national comprehensive energy security zone and a marine power-strong region. (Wang Qing)