China is racing to develop a new generation of wind farms that can not only survive tropical cyclones, but also harness their power.

In southern China's Guangdong province, a new skyline is taking shape away from its shores: hundreds of wind turbines have been installed in the South China Sea to generate renewable electricity for homes, offices and factories.

The enormous towers – some as tall as 30-storey buildings – are a symbol of China's ambition for a greener future. Guangdong, one of the country's offshore wind hubs, is already home to about 15% of all turbines installed in the ocean worldwide. Over the next five years, the local government plans to more than double that fleet.

These turbines are on the frontline of one of the most destructive weather phenomena on Earth, which hits China's coast year after year: typhoons, tropical cyclones originating in the northwest Pacific.

These powerful storms bring winds at speeds of 119km/h (74mph) or higher. They terrorise East and Southeast Asian countries every May to November, and often leave a trail of death and destruction, including collapsed buildings and flooded streets. Typhoon Ragasa, which devastated southern China in September and was the world's most powerful storm this year, reached speeds of 241km/h (150mph). Typhoons are the same phenomenon as hurricanes: they are both spinning storms fed by warm air, and just go by different names depending on where they occur. If they originate in the North Atlantic and northeast Pacific, they are called hurricanes; in the northwest Pacific, they are called typhoons.

However, the swathes of China's coastal regions that face typhoons multiple times a year, also have the best offshore wind resources, says Zhu Ronghua, director of Yangjiang Offshore Wind Energy Laboratory, an institute supported by the Guangdong government. The challenge, he says, is to build wind farms that are able to reap the typhoon's energy.

"It is extremely important that turbines installed in those regions can not only resist typhoons, but also harness the strong gusts in the lead up to their arrival," Zhu says.

Chinese companies are at the forefront of the research, development and commercial deployment of typhoon-resistant wind turbines, says Qiao Liming, who at the time of the interview was chief strategy officer for Asia at Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), a global trade body for the wind power sector.

"The Chinese government has made a strategic decision to make offshore wind a cornerstone of its 'dual‑carbon' goals," Qiao says. The goals refer to peaking carbon emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060.

There are different ways to define a typhoon-resistant turbine. Nationally speaking, China has a standard that guides companies to make "typhoon-type" turbines capable of withstanding wind averaging up to 198 km/h (123mph) for 10 minutes.

On a global level, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) – an organisation publishing international standards for electrical, electronic and related technologies – has developed guidelines for "typhoon-class" turbines expected to survive 205 km/h (127mph) wind for 10 minutes and gusts of up to 290 km/h (180mph) for three seconds.

Neither is mandatory, but manufacturers can have their products certified by a third-party company to meet these standards. Some turbines in China do not have those certificates but have survived typhoons, so they become typhoon-resistant by reality, according to industry experts.

On average, a Chinese offshore wind farm is projected to experience at least 100 typhoons during its designed lifespan, which is normally 25 years, according to a spokesperson at Goldwind, a Chinese wind turbine manufacturer.

"If a wind turbine collapses, it can threaten human lives and cause enormous financial losses," the spokesperson says.

Past disasters have shown the severity of damage. In 2006, super typhoon Saomei landed in east China's Zhejiang province, bringing gusts

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