According to a news release from the company, the project will take three to five years to come to fruition and have a price tag approaching $400 million.
When all that work is done, the company said, the new turbine will feature a 12 MW direct drive generator and will produce 45 percent more energy than any other offshore turbine currently available.
“We want to lead in the technologies that are driving the global energy transition," said John Flannery, GE's chairman and CEO. "Offshore wind is one of those technologies and we will bring the full resources of GE to make the Haliade-X program successful for our customers.”
GE said the turbine will tower more than 850 feet over the sea, making it more than five times the size of the iconic Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France.
Designed and manufactured by LM Wind Power, the 107-meter-long blades will be the longest offshore blades to date and will surpass the size of a soccer field.
One Haliade-X 12 MW turbine will generate up to 67 GWh annually 2, enough clean power for up to 5,000 households per turbine, and up to 300,000 U.S. households in a 750 MW wind farm configuration, the company said.
“The renewables industry took more than 20 years to install the first 17 GW of offshore wind," said Jérôme Pécresse, president and CEO of GE Renewable Energy.
"Today, the industry forecasts that it will install more than 90 GW over the next 12 years," Pécresse continued. "This is being driven by lower cost of electricity from scale and technology. The Haliade-X shows GE’s commitment to the offshore wind segment and will set a new benchmark for cost of electricity, thus driving more offshore growth.”
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