A deeper dive into wind turbine capacities.

This week, we follow up last week's analysis of wind turbine sizes to bring you some interesting infographics.

If you missed the article, you can find it in full here:

Wind turbine makers halt race for size to focus on cost, delivery

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From the article:

Under financial pressure, western wind turbine suppliers are producing less turbine variants than Chinese rivals.

Since 2020, western suppliers have announced 29 new variants of onshore and offshore wind turbines, compared with over 426 from China, according to Endri Lico, principal analyst for Global Wind Technology and Supply Chain at Wood Mackenzie.

“The main reason is due to [original equipment manufacturer's] profitability pressure and their need to simplify their product portfolio,” Lico told Reuters Events.

Wood Mackenzie kindly provided us the data, so we produced this chart:

Note: The chart refers to onshore and offshore turbines and suppliers refers to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

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Also from the article:

Over the past decade, offshore wind developers in Europe and U.S. sought larger turbines to lower the cost of energy per kilowatt hour and win state-backed power contracts in competitive auctions.

The maximum size of new offshore wind turbines has risen from around 8 MW to around 15 MW amid an “arms race” among leading OEMs, said Signe Sorensen, Senior Research Analyst for the Americas at Aegir Insights.

If you're interested in how commercial offshore wind turbine capacities have compared with prototype models, check out this infographic from the U.S. Department of Energy:

Capacities of prototype offshore wind turbines versus commercial turbines

Note: shapes refer to operational prototypes and bars represent commercial turbines (average installed capacity). GE is General Electric, SGRE is Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, CSSC is China State Shipbuilding Corporation, DEC is Dongfang Electric Corp., and GUP is Guodian United Power Technology Co., Ltd.

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