Orsted and Metal Industries Research & Development Centre (MIRDC) have announced the successful recipients of their Industrial Development Fund in Taiwan.
The fund provides resources and knowledge-sharing to help enhance local sub-suppliers’ technological capabilities, close the skills gap and nurture talent to sustain the healthy development of offshore wind supply chain in Taiwan.
The initiative, which was backed by a NTD60m (€1.9m) fund fully sponsored by Orsted, enabled more than 60 companies to ramp up capabilities required to tap into the offshore wind supply chain.
Executed by MIRDC for the past 18 months, the fund enabled 108 people to receive certification for Global Wind Organisation (GWO) safety training, and 82 welders obtained high-level welding certificates.
Moreover, nine companies selected for their innovative research proposals achieved promising initial results.
These include research on upgrading technologies such as auxiliary remote welding technology and utilisation of remote operated vehicle to increase work efficiency and productivity.
Orsted Taiwan chairperson Christy Wang said: “We are delighted to see these local companies with good potential benefit from the fund and have successfully ramped up their capabilities.
“Some of them became competent sub-suppliers contributing to the Greater Changhua 1 & 2a Offshore Wind Farms and have leveraged the experiences to contribute to other offshore wind projects in Taiwan.
“The fund demonstrates our concerted efforts to help build a healthy offshore wind ecosystem from scratch.
“This is just the beginning to unlock potential from local sub-suppliers, and we hope to see this spark further initiatives from the government and industry peers, working together to ensure the healthy development of local supply chain and offshore wind industry.”
Maritime Innovation & Industry Promotion Department deputy director Chen Wei-te added: “There are a lot of local suppliers who are capable and with potential to participate in offshore wind.
“The challenges are that they don’t have sufficient welding skills and offshore wind training such the GWO basic safety training.
“Orsted initiated the Industrial Development Fund to assist the local suppliers and sub-tier contractors to ramp up manufacturing capabilities and cultivate talents, in order to foster stable growth of offshore wind local supply chain.”