Authorities in Taiwan have announced the winners of the country’s first 3GW-plus offshore wind auction.
The Bureau of Energy said it had awarded grid capacity concessions to 12 projects totalling 3836MW of capacity.
Confirmed winners include Orsted, WPD, Swancor and Macquarie, Yushan and Northland Power, Taipower, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and China Steel.
Danish developer Orsted secured 900MW of capacity with its 605MW Changhua 1 and 295MW Changhua 2, both with grid connections for 2021.
The next steps for the Taiwan Strait projects is to secure establishment permits and sign power purchase deals with utility Taipower, said Orsted.
Chief executive Martin Neubert said the award was a “breakthrough moment” for the Asia-Pacific region.
Northland and partner Yushan Energy were awarded 300MW for the Hai Long 2 project. The partners are working to complete all regulatory and permit-related activities to secure a 20-year power purchase agreement later this year.
Hai Long 2 is scheduled to be connected to the Taiwan grid in 2024, Northland said.
German developer WPD said it had secured at least 1GW of capacity from its Yunlin and Guanyin projects.
The 650-700MW Yunlin will be built first and is due to be commissioned in 2020-21. The around 350MW Guanyin project will be commissioned in 2021.
“Everybody who followed us during the last year knows that our main focus for Yunlin is the speedy construction completed in 2020,” said WPD director Achim Berge Olsen.
“While the acknowledgment of this approach by the Government is really great news, we will now concentrate on tying together contractors, banks and investors for this important goal.”
Another German developer, EnBW, confirmed it had missed out securing Taiwan offshore capacity.
Image: Orsted
Taiwan awards offshore accolades
By EBS