On February 19, the Lufeng Oil Field Demonstration Project for Clean Energy Transition (Lufeng Project) undertaken by COOEC officially commenced construction at COOEC Qingdao site. This marked the beginning of the construction phase of this project.

The Lufeng project is the world’s first 16MW TLP-supported floating wind power platform, which can generate 10kWh of electricity within just 2.25 seconds at full capacity. Moreover, it is the world’s farthest and deepest offshore wind power platform deployed to the northwest of the Lufeng 14-4DPP platform in the waters of Eastern Guangdong, about 136km away from the shoreline and 136m under the sea level. With a designed annual capacity of 54 million kWh, this project can reduce CO₂ emissions by 35,000 tons per year. The clean electricity generated will be connected to the power grid of Lufeng oilfields through submarine cables, thus the integration of deep-sea floating wind power and the development of oil and gas will be enabled.

Installed with a vertical TLP mooring system in its core structure, the floating wind power platform of the Lufeng project is connected to seafloor anchors through nine tendons. Even faced with a level 17 typhoon, the platform can remain less than 1° of inclination. Compared with semi-submersible offshore wind power platforms, the TLP system brings down the amount of steel use by nearly 50% without any loss of structural strength due to its floating structure, and reduces the occupied area of sea to only around 1/10. This shows a notable increase of resource utilization.

The research team previously overcame several technical difficulties, such as those encountered in the design of a torsion-resistant shared mooring system that can withstand high loads and the analysis of the integrated coupling of wind turbines and the floating structure. Thanks to these breakthroughs and a series of tests in a water tank and the iteration of wind turbine solutions, the size and structure of the platform have been further optimized, thereby laying a foundation for standardized production of offshore wind power platforms.