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2023.05.12
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5 Facts You Need to Know About Taiwan's Offshore Wind Energy Project
cover Image by Power Technology
2016 the construction started, and now 2023, Taiwan has 200 offshore wind turbines located in Taiwan Strait.
Background
Since the Taiwanese government launched the policy on reducing carbon emissions by the year 2025, Taiwan’s offshore wind energy construction has been going on since 2016, and the projects have been pinned on the global agenda ever since, the investment of foreign capital has reached 32 billion USD on the island’s offshore wind farm projects. The landscape of renewable energy will be drastically changed, and since the infrastructure is almost ready, the ESG responsibility is now indispensable for Taiwanese firms, local businesses are required, and no excuse to adopt greener energy.
For stater, here are 5 facts about the Taiwan Offshore projects for you to recap.
1. The beginning of the project
Taiwan's energy import ratio is 98%, and we rely mostly on fossil energy, the government has raised awareness, in order to go greener and reduce carbon emissions, implant renewable and sustainable energy is inevitable, so in 2017, the "Four-year Promotion Plan for Wind Power Generation" was launched, and the plan will also accelerate the island to meet the goal of carbon reduction in 2050.
2. Taiwan Strait holds 80% of the world's offshore wind farms suitable for wind power generation
A report indicates among the 20 most windy offshore wind farms in the world, 16 are located in the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) also found in 2013 that Taiwan has a total area of 5,640 square kilometers for installing offshore wind power farms, with a capacity of 29GW (29 billion watts), and can fully support the annual electricity consumption of 20 million households. (data from Zone of Potential - 23’ was released by 4C Offshore)
3. The first offshore wind turbine - Formosa 1
The offshore wind farms' construction and commercialization starts in 2019, the first wind power station called Formosa 1, is a 128 MW offshore wind power station located near Miaoli and was developed by Swancor Renewable, the company also holds a 7.5% stake in the project. It consists of two wind turbines, both from the largest industrial manufacturing company – Siemens. Investors included Ørsted A/S, JERA, and Macquarie Capital. (Source by Power Technology)
4. Taiwan sets the milestone to 200 wind turbines on 26th Arpil 2023
The Ministry of Economy Affaire on 26th April announced the 200th wind turbine has been officially established, this large-scale offshore wind farm now has a capacity of 1.2GW, now can support 1.2 million households’ annual electricity consumption.
(From WindTAIWAN 2023.04.26)
5. The biggest challenge of Taiwan offshore wind farm construction - localization
It’s about Taiwan’s industry structure, 31% of local companies and firms are OEM and ODM. So when it comes to offshore wind farm construction of the construction such as wind turbines, from suppliers to developers, there were no roles for Taiwan, the construction pretty much relies on foreign skills. Recently YuanKuan(永冠) started to join the offshore construction work by investing nearly NT$9 billion dollars and building a 20.5 hectares factory, with mature and advanced production technology, that can stably supply the parts needed for the largest offshore wind turbines on the market. But the purpose is most hoping to have the offshore wind construction technology and expertise stay within Taiwan and hope through the processes, Taiwan will set a model for all other Asia countries.
DWTEK
May 11th 2023