Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday announced that it is teaming up with Taiwan International Ports Corp (台灣港務) to build the nation’s first offshore wind port in Taichung, as part of the state-run utility’s efforts to help accelerate the nation’s “green” energy development.
The project, in which Taipower is to invest more than NT$3 billion (US$98.52 million), is to be the largest offshore wind port in Southeast Asia, the utility said.
“This project will play a major role in the development of the ‘green’ energy industry in Taiwan,” Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Yang Wei-fuu (楊偉甫) said in Taichung while overseeing the ceremony.
The offshore wind port is to consist of two wharfs and a plot of land at Taichung Port (台中港) with a combined size of 12.8 hectares.
Onshore assembly on the wharfs would reduce the risk and difficulty of assembling the 32m wind turbine pylons and their 32.5m-long blades, the utility said.
As the planned offshore wind farm is only 40km from the Taichung harbor, it would shorten the time it would take ships to deliver the prepared wind turbines, Taipower said.
Taiwan International Ports is to expand the weight capacity of each wharf from 3 tonnes per square meter to 50 tonnes per square meter. It is also to dump 1.5m thick layer of gravel on the seabed to enhance its capacity to handle the weight of the turbines.
Taipower chairman Chu Wen-chen (朱文成) said the company could assemble at least 30 wind turbines per year when the weight capacity expansion plan is completed in 2019, which means a total of 600 wind turbines could be assembled in the next 20 years.
Taipower plans to gradually assemble 360 wind turbines over the next 20 years and lease the wharf to other power companies to assemble their components, Chu said.
The utility has also initiated a program to install a batch of 22 offshore wind turbines with a combined installed capacity of between 108 and 110 megawatts by the end of 2020 off the coast of Changhua County, Chu said.
The 22 wind turbines would generate 360 million kilowatt-hours, enough power for 100,000 households, Chu said, adding that the first of the 22 wind turbines would be assembled in June 2019 at the earliest.
The second phase of the project would be to install 116 offshore wind turbines with a combined installed capacity of 900 megawatts, Chu said, without offering a time frame.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is