SHANGHAI Electric has completed building China's biggest offshore wind turbine, a sign that the country has achieved core techniques to design large-scale turbines.

The 3.6-megawatt self-made offshore turbine, which started construction in mid-2008, powered off the production line at Lingang Heavy Equipment Manufacturing Base in Shanghai, the company said yesterday. Shanghai Electric owns all intellectual property rights and patents.

The turbine has passed tests and power will start being transmitted to the grid in August. It is able to generate 9 million kilowatt-hours annually.

Shanghai Electric has identified offshore wind power generation as one of its top priorities and aims to sell wind turbines worth 10 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) by 2011.

Shanghai has the nation's first offshore wind power demonstration project with capacity of 102MW at the Donghai Bridge offshore wind farm.

It could meet the needs of more than 200,000 households in Shanghai when fully operational. It is also the first offshore wind farm outside Europe.

China ranks as the world's second-largest wind power country by capacity.