Taiwan’s biggest offshore wind farm ‘Greater Changhua’ produces its first power

A large-scale offshore wind farm in waters off the coast of Taiwan has created its first power, with those engaged with the project depicting the news as a “major milestone.” Ørsted has accomplished successful delivery of first power from the 900 MW Greater Changhua 1 and 2a wind farm offshore Taiwan.

As indicated by Ørsted, the first power was delivered as scheduled with the installation and empowerment of the first batch of offshore wind turbines which were moved from the Port of Taichung to the site.

In a statement Thursday, Danish energy firm Orsted said the first power at the Greater Changhua 1 and 2a facility was delivered on schedule following the installation of its initial set of wind turbines.

Electricity, it said, had been “transferred to Orsted’s onshore substations via array cables, offshore substations, and export cables. The renewable energy was fed into the national grid via Taipower’s substation.” Taipower is a state-owned utility.

Situated 35 to 60 kilometers off Taiwan’s west coast, the scale of Changhua 1 and 2a is extensive, with Orsted depicting it as “Taiwan’s biggest offshore wind farm.”

It will have a capacity of around 900 megawatts and use 111 turbines from Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy. Capacity alludes to the maximum amount of electricity installations can produce, not what they’re fundamentally producing.

It’s trusted that the construction of the project will wrap up this year. As indicated by Orsted, the facility will ultimately produce sufficient power to meet the issues of 1 million households in Taiwan.

“Delivering the first power as scheduled is a major milestone for both Orsted and Taiwan,” Christy Wang, who is general manager of Orsted Taiwan, said. “This has not been an easy task, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic challenges during the past two years,” Wang later added.

Thursday’s declaration represents a step forward for Taiwan’s offshore wind sector however a report from the Global Wind Energy Council, published in April, featured how things have not all been plain sailing.

“Taiwan should have commissioned more than 1 GW [gigawatt] of offshore wind capacity from three projects last year based on the project COD [commercial operation date] plans, but only the 109 MW Changhua demonstration came online in the end,” the Global Wind Report for 2022 said. The delay, the GWEC added, had been “primarily caused by COVID-19 related disruption.”

In Asia, the GWEC’s report puts Taiwan second just to China as far as planned offshore wind installations in the close to mid-term.

As per the trade association, China is scheduled to add 39 GW of offshore wind throughout the next five years, with Taiwan set to install 6.6 GW. Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan are viewed as adding 2.2, 1.7, and 1 GW respectively.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs says it’s targeting 20% renewable energy generation by the middle of this decade.

“The goal for PV [photovoltaic] installation has been set at 20GW by 2025, while offshore wind power is expected to exceed 5.7GW,” it says. Solar photovoltaic alludes to an approach to straightforwardly changing over sunlight into electricity. Experts in Taiwan additionally want natural gas to represent 50% of power generation in 2025.

Moving Taiwan’s generation mix to one where renewables play a bigger role represents a major task. Refering to information from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan’s Bureau of Foreign Trade says 44.69% of total power generation in 2021 came from coal firing.

Natural gas’ share added up to 36.77%, with nuclear responsible for 9.63% and renewables 5.94%. Fuel oil and pumped-storage hydroelectricity contributed 1.87% and 1.10%.

Toward the start of the month, the first turbine was installed at the site via Seajack Scylla, a wind turbine installation vessel worked via Seajacks, part of Eneti Inc.

The electricity was moved to Ørsted’s onshore substations through array cables, offshore substations, and export cables. The renewable energy was fed into the national grid via Taipower’s substation, the organization said.

Last month, the commissioning team of Ørsted energized the offshore substation and export cable of the Greater Changhua 2a offshore wind farm, while the testing of the two substations occurred in February and mid-December 2021.

Construction of Greater Changhua wind farm in Taiwan

The commissioning team of Ørsted touched off the offshore substation and export cable of the Greater Changhua 2a offshore wind farm last month, with testing of the two substations occurring in February and mid-December 2021, individually. The 900 MW offshore wind project is as yet pushing ahead at full speed. In the interim, Ørsted’s operations and maintenance (O&M) team is planning to take over and guarantee the ideal performance of the wind farm, which will offer steady and clean energy for more than 25 years.

The 900 MW wind farms will be situated 35 to 50 kilometers off the coast of Changhua County and will comprise 111 Siemens Gamesa 8 MW wind turbines that are expected to be totally operational by the finish of 2022. The 605 MW Greater Changhua 1 wind farm is jointly owned by Ørsted (half) and a consortium contained Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and Cathay PE, a Taiwanese private equity fund (50%). Ørsted is the sole owner of the 295 MW Changhua 2a and it is the organization responsible for developing the wind farms.