Offshore wind in Taiwan moved to bigger scale as global champion Orsted has kicked off the installation at sea of the 900MW Greater Changhua 1 & 2A projects, the first large-scale and far shore wind farms off the island.
Located at 35-60 kilometres from the coast of Changhua Country, the wind farms are slated to provide power to one million households next year.
"With 30 years of experience and an end-to-end business model of developing, constructing, and operating offshore wind farms, Orsted has been committed since day one to helping Taiwan build first world-class offshore wind farms to provide clean energy and contribute to its energy transition goal," Orsted Asia-Pacific president Matthias Bausenwein said.
“The commencement of offshore installation of the Greater Changhua 1 & 2a offshore wind farms signifies a landmark step towards achieving that goal of making Taiwan greener."
Orsted last year had divested half of the 605MW Greater Changhua 1 sub-project to Canada’s Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and Taiwanese private equity fund Cathay PE.
Part of 5.5GW plan
Swancor Holding in late 2019 had completed the installation of the 128MW Formosa 1 project, using Siemens Gamesa turbines, of which Orsted is co-owner. But none of the larger, utility-scale projects from a plan to put 5.5GW of offshore wind capacity into the water off Taiwan by 2025 have been built yet.
Taiwan’s recently re-elected government plans to develop a further 10GW by 2035 in order to become the offshore wind hub for the entire East Asian region.
Those plans have hit a snag lately, though, as Taiwanese authorities have denied Wpd a final permit for its 350MW Guanyin near-shore project on aviation safety grounds, although the government had already awarded the area to the German developer in a 2018 tender for grid-connection capacity.
Orsted said it has started full-scale offshore construction at Greater Changhua 1 & 2A with horizontal drilling to prepare for cable laying and scour protection work to make the seabed ready for foundation installation.
The utility in the meantime is progressing with onshore construction, including completing civil works at two onshore substations and the upgrade of the hinterland at wharfs at the port of Taichung.
Greater Changhua extension plan
"After nearly 1,800 days of relentless hard work, we are now ready to commence all offshore installation,” Orsted Taiwan general manager Christy Wang said.
“This is not an easy task, especially with the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, but we have demonstrated our profound offshore wind project management experience and expertise to successfully secure the vessels and personnel, making it possible for us to be on time for the offshore construction.”
Orsted has also been awarded the right to build the 920MW Greater Changhua 2b & 4 projects, and in 2020 signed a corporate power purchase agreements for them with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSMC), the world’s largest pure-play semiconductor foundry. The extension to Greater Changhua is slated to be operational in 2025 and fully commissioned in 2026.
The Danish utility has also started the environmental impact assessments of its Xu Feng 1, 2 and 3 projects, also off Changhua County, which have a potential capacity of 2GW. Orsted said it is awaiting the new framework for further offshore wind tenders, and is ready to enter them with both the Xu Feng projects, and the 570MW Greater Changhua 3 project that already has obtained EIA approval.
