China Activates Typhoon-Resistant Floating Wind Platform

China’s first domestically designed and built 16-megawatt tension-leg floating wind power platform has officially begun operations, marking a major milestone in the country’s push toward deep-sea renewable energy. The platform, named “Haiyou Anlan,” has been successfully connected to the Lufeng oil field grid and is now directly supplying green electricity, according to an announcement by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) on August 6. The Xinhua News Agency reported that the platform is designed to withstand Category 17 typhoons and represents a significant engineering achievement in offshore wind energy.

A Technological Leap in Deep-Sea Wind Power

The “Haiyou Anlan” is the world’s first 16 MW tension-leg floating wind power platform, installed in the Pearl River Estuary basin at a water depth of 136 meters, approximately 136 kilometers offshore. International sources report the platform is positioned approximately 250 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong in the South China Sea, an area prone to tropical cyclones. The platform stands over 307 meters tall—nearly 110 stories—and weighs approximately 7,800 tonnes, with a swept area equivalent to 7.5 standard football fields. It is anchored to the seabed by nine steel tension-leg cables and is designed for 25 years of continuous operation.

According to Science and Technology Daily, the platform is composed of an upper floating body, a seabed anchor foundation, and a mooring system. It is connected to the Lufeng oil field grid via a 4.3-kilometer submarine cable, and is expected to provide 54 million kWh of green electricity annually.

The platform’s innovative combined power supply model—integrating offshore wind, fuel power generation, and energy storage—enables high-proportion wind power integration into the oil field grid. This approach reduces the oil field’s dependence on fossil fuel-based power generation while cutting pollutant and carbon emissions. The project is expected to save 15,000 cubic meters of fuel oil annually and reduce CO2 emissions by 35,000 tons per year.

Breaking Foreign Technical Blockade

The development of the tension-leg platform (TLP) technology represents a significant breakthrough for China’s offshore wind industry. Unlike semi-submersible platforms, TLPs are fixed to the seabed through vertical, high-tension cables, creating a “half-floating, half-fixed” state that provides near-fixed vertical positioning in medium and deep offshore waters. As Xinhua noted, tension-leg platforms offer outstanding advantages in stability and steel usage per megawatt compared to semi-submersible designs, while using less sea area and reducing conflicts with traditional ocean use.

The technology was developed entirely by CNOOC’s engineering team after foreign turbine manufacturers refused to share key internal parameters. According to a report from China Youth Daily, the team used artificial intelligence to reverse-engineer turbine parameters, achieving over 90 percent technical accuracy. Deng Shi, Chief Engineer for Floating Body Performance Design at CNOOC Engineering Design Institute, described the challenge: “Without these data, it’s like trying to make shoes for a giant covered in a black cloth—impossible to move forward.” The final design received four international certification certificates.

The engineering effort was led by a young team at CNOOC’s Offshore Oil Engineering Co., which received the Tianjin Science and Technology Special Prize for their work on deep-sea floating energy equipment. The team’s development process involved eight rounds of iterative optimization, using the power of ocean waves to help the platform “play tai chi” against typhoons—solving the global challenge of excessive platform sway in extreme sea conditions. They also pioneered a stability modeling and coordinated control technology system for integrating floating wind power into oil field microgrids, achieving a renewable energy consumption rate of 99.8 percent.

From Demonstration to Commercialization

The “Haiyou Anlan” represents the latest step in China’s evolving floating wind power strategy. Its predecessor, the “Haiyou Guanlan,” was China’s first deep-sea floating wind power platform, connected to the grid at the Wenchang oil field in Hainan in May 2023. As Banyuetan reported, that semi-submersible platform with 7.25 MW capacity survived Super Typhoon Yagi in 2024, becoming the world’s first floating wind power system to pass a super typhoon test, with its tilt angle never exceeding the design limit of 10 degrees.

The new platform departed from Zhuhai Gaolan Port on June 27, 2026, escorted by Zhuhai maritime authorities, heading for the Lufeng oilfield cluster in eastern Guangdong waters. As Eastmoney reported, the departure marked China’s deep-sea floating wind power technology accelerating from demonstration to scale and commercialization.

Strategic Significance and Global Context

China’s offshore wind power sector has grown rapidly, with the country now holding more than half of the global offshore wind market. As of May 2026, China’s total installed wind power capacity exceeded 660 GW, up 17 percent year-on-year, according to Maritime Executive. The offshore component reached 47 GW, accounting for 78 percent of newly added offshore wind capacity globally, with plans to add up to 63 GW more.

The “Haiyou Anlan” project is China’s first offshore installation integrating floating wind power with oil and gas operations. It creates a new path of “deep-sea floating wind power plus oil field development” collaborative carbon reduction, reducing offshore oil field operational carbon emissions while driving the floating wind power industrial chain’s growth in the Pearl River Delta region. As China Environment News noted, the project is designed to stimulate the growth of the maritime economy and the transition to a greener, more environmentally friendly energy sector.

Internationally, the closest comparison is Norway’s Hywind Tampen project, commissioned in 2022, which uses 11 turbines of 8.6 MW each to supply electricity to Equinor’s Snorre and Gullfaks oil and gas fields in the North Sea. As Power Peak Digest noted, the Chinese platform represents a significant scale-up in single-turbine capacity for floating wind applications, more than doubling the capacity of Norway’s individual turbines.

Looking Ahead

CNOOC’s announcement emphasized that the successful connection of “Haiyou Anlan” marks China’s deep-sea floating wind power equipment technology reaching the forefront of the world, exploring a new technical route for the country’s offshore wind power development. The project demonstrates China’s transition from following to leading in deep-sea floating wind power technology.

With the 15th Five-Year Plan explicitly calling for improving ocean governance capabilities and accelerating the building of a maritime power, China’s investment in floating wind technology is expected to continue expanding. The successful deployment of the world’s first 16 MW tension-leg floating wind platform signals that China is positioning itself at the leading edge of deep-sea renewable energy development, with implications for both the global offshore wind industry and the broader energy transition.

As China’s deep-sea wind energy resources remain abundant and largely untapped, the tension-leg platform technology developed for “Haiyou Anlan” could serve as a template for future projects. The platform’s successful operation in typhoon-prone waters also provides valuable data for the global offshore wind industry, particularly for regions facing similar extreme weather challenges. With the country’s broader push toward maritime power and clean energy development, the “Haiyou Anlan” represents not just an engineering achievement, but a strategic step in China’s long-term energy transformation.