A huge wind turbine blade has arrived in the UK for testing

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The wind turbine blade is 107 meters long.

A 107-meter-long wind turbine blade has arrived in the U.K. for testing. In an announcement Thursday, the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult said the blade would be tested at facilities in Blyth, Northumberland.

The blade, from LM Wind Power, is designed to be used on GE Renewable Energy’s Haliade-X 12 MW turbine, which will have a capacity of 12 megawatts and a height of 260 meters once fully assembled.

ORE Catapult described the blade as the world’s longest, while GE Renewable Energy has repeatedly referred to the Haliade-X 12 MW as “the world’s largest offshore wind turbine.”

The CEO of ORE Catapult, Andrew Jamieson, said the blade would be put “through an extremely rigorous testing program designed to make sure it can withstand years of operation at sea.” Looking ahead, three more of the blades will be shipped to a prototype facility in Rotterdam.

Jamieson further added that the blade was “larger than the total wingspan of an A380 aircraft” and said it represented “a huge milestone for our industry.”

As technology develops, the size of wind turbines is increasing. In September 2018, MHI Vestas Offshore Wind launched the first commercially available double digit turbine, the V164-10.0 MW. The turbine has 80-meter long blades which weigh 35 tons each, and a tip height of around 187 meters.

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