Chinese company Mingyang Smart Energy has announced plans to build the world’s largest offshore wind turbine, a unit with a rotor diameter of 280m that would be able to supply power to around 100,000 people, green energy website Recharge reports.

The machine was unveiled by the turbine maker on Friday when it was billed as an attempt to “move beyond the 18MW threshold”.

The previous holder of the size record for turbines was Chinese company Goldwind, which unveiled a unit with a rotor diameter of 236m in October last year. This was an advance beyond a 15MW turbine manufactured by Danish wind energy company Vesta, which had a diameter of 236m.

According to Mingyang, the “MySE 18.X-28X” unit will turn at a speed of 8.5m/s, generating 80GWh a year.

Another renewable website, Offshore Wind, notes that the turbine will have a lightweight modular design, as well as the use of holographic sensing and digital twin technology to optimise its operations and enable it to survive extreme weather conditions, including typhoons with wind speeds greater that 200km/h.

The company did not indicate when the unit might enter production.