If you thought ground-based wind turbines were imposing, wait until you see what Chinese energy company Linyi Yunchuan has cooking.
A video shared earlier today by Chinese journalist Li Zexin captured a massive airborne wind turbine (AWT) dominating the skyline over China’s Sichuan Province.
“New unreal airborne wind turbines that float to harness high-altitude winds are being used in China,” Li wrote on X-formerly-Twitter. “Though already the world’s top, China’s ambitious green energy pace has never decreased.”
New unreal airborne wind turbines that float to harness high-altitude winds are being used in China.
Though already the world’s top, China’s ambitious green energy pace has never decreased. pic.twitter.com/goDQD17BE7 — Li Zexin 李泽欣 (@XH_Lee23) January 9, 2026
“Unreal” is definitely one word for it. The device appears to be a prototype of Linyi Yunchuan’s “Stratospheric Floating Wind Power Systems” (SAWES), an AWT platform designed in partnership with Tsinghua University and the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, among others, according to a company profile.
Specifically, the Global Times has identified it as the SAWES S2000, reporting that the unit successfully completed a test flight on Monday. It’s said to be the “world’s first megawatt-class high-altitude wind power system designed for urban deployment,” with a maximum power output of about 3 megawatts.
This particular S2000 was only airborne for 30 minutes, generating about 385 kilowatt-hours of electricity and reaching an altitude of around 6,500 feet. Though it wasn’t up for very long, it did connect to the local power grid, according to the GT, a world first for AWTs.
“At its current output level, one hour of operation can generate enough electricity to fully charge approximately 30 top-spec electric vehicles from zero to full,” Dun Tianrui, chief designer of the system, told the publication.
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