Norwegian-French floating wind pioneer BW Ideol has inked a partnership deal with Taiwan’s Taiya Renewable Energy to jointly develop a pipeline of industrial-scale arrays off the southeast Asian island, kicked off by a 50MW pilot.
Under the terms of the “two-fold” agreement BW Ideol will build and install one of its ‘damping pool’ foundations as part of a demonstration project in waters allocated via the special offshore wind tender announced by Taipei in August, with construction “to start as early as 2025”.
The pair would then move onto develop “several” commercial-scale projects in areas off in the Taiwan Strait where environmental impact assessment are already underway so as to “ensure a timely qualification [when] tenders are officially launched”.
“We are pleased to pursue the growth of our global project pipeline, in line with our dual-leg strategy as co-developer and as technology and EPCI [engineering, procurement, construction and installation] services provider,” said Paul de la Guérivière, CEO of BW Ideol.
“We look forward to actively contributing to the acceleration of commercial-scale floating wind in Taiwan and further strengthen our Asian presence.”
De la Guérivière added that “joining forces with Taiya [would allow BW Ideol to] benefit from its strong local footprint and experience in engaging with local stakeholders”.
Taiya Renewables general manager Richard Liu said: “BW Ideol is a highly competitive and leading integrated floating wind platform without a doubt. By joining forces, [our] two companies can strategically connect together for asset co-developer and technical expertise in the floating offshore wind industry.”
Taiya recently entered into a partnership with France’s EDF Renewables to jointly bid in Taiwan’s upcoming auction with an eye on building the Huan-Yang bottom-fixed offshore wind project.
