China Huaneng Group (CHNG) has begun full-capacity operations at a 504MW offshore wind farm in the Yellow Sea.

The site, located roughly 70km off the northern coast of the Shandong Peninsula, uses 42 turbines rated at 12MW each and sits in waters 52–56m deep.

This reflects the increasing transition towards larger turbine technologies in offshore initiatives, reported Saur Energy.

The project achieved grid connection on 7 January and has now entered full operation.

The wind farm employs four‑pile jacket foundations up to 83.9m in height to support the turbines in deeper waters.

CHNG reported that this initiative developed positioning technology utilising the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System to attain millimetre-level accuracy for seabed pile driving.

Together with intelligent assisted sinking technology, this reduced installation time per turbine foundation to 29 hours from 48 hours.

For power export, the developer used drone-assisted systems along with artificial magnetic field methods to install 95.6km of subsea cables.

Project delivery involved work in complex seabed and marine conditions and over a long offshore distance.

The developer cited these factors when outlining the engineering and installation measures used at the site.

China’s offshore wind capacity has expanded alongside large onshore projects across northern and western regions.

The Ministry of Natural Resources released data in March indicating that the country represents more than 50% of newly installed as well as total global offshore wind capacity.

In Shandong Province, offshore wind development began in 2021 with installation at the 301.6MW Huaneng Shandong Peninsula South 4 project near Haiyang City.

Provincial plans target 12.6GW of offshore wind by 2030, offshoreWIND.biz reported.