A 26-megawatt offshore wind turbine that has been commissioned for grid-connected power generation in Dongying, east China's Shandong Province, is the world's largest of its kind by far, according to its developer.

Independently developed by Dongfang Electric Wind Power Co., Ltd. and fully domestically produced, the wind turbine is the world's largest in terms of the single-unit capacity and the rotor diameter exceeding 310 meters, said Yang Senlin, vice president of the company's wind power research and design institute.

With a hub height of 185 meters, the turbine's swept area is equivalent to the area of ten and a half standard football fields, Yang said.

When operating fully, a single turbine can produce 100 million kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually at a wind speed of 10 meters per second, meeting the annual electricity needs of 55,000 households. This helps avoid burning over 30,000 tonnes of standard coal, thus reducing carbon dioxide emissions by over 80,000 tonnes each year.

Data from the National Energy Administration (NEA) shows that China has built the world's largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system. As of the end of July, the country's cumulative installed wind and solar power-generation capacity reached 1.68 billion kilowatts, with an average annual growth rate of 28 percent.

China's installed wind power capacity has ranked first globally for 15 consecutive years, and its installed photovoltaic capacity has ranked first globally for 10 consecutive years, according to the NEA.