QINGDAO -- China's first deep-sea floating wind power platform, funded and built by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), set sail off the coast of Qingdao City in east China's Shandong Province on Feb 27.

The platform traveled nearly 1,420 nautical miles from Qingdao to the port city of Zhuhai in south China's Guangdong Province, a journey of about 15 days. The platform will then be shipped from Zhuhai to an offshore oil field for installation.

The new platform, named CNOOC Guanlan and equipped with a central column flanked by three side columns, is over 80 meters in width, 35 meters in height and close to 4,000 tons in weight. It will be installed in an offshore oil field 136 kilometers from Wenchang in Hainan -- where strong winds and big ocean waves pose a huge challenge to the design of the wind power platform.

The sailing of the platform on Thursday marks an important step in the future operation of the world's first offshore wind power project with a water depth of over 100 meters and an offshore distance of over 100 kilometers.

After the project is put into operation, the electricity generated by the turbine will be connected to the power grid of the offshore oilfield group for oil and gas production, with an annual power generation capacity of 22 million kilowatt hours.