Seven offshore wind farm developers have secured government contracts to build 10 offshore wind farms along the western coast of Taiwan as the government aims to build up 5.5 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power capacity by 2025, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The 10 projects would have a total capacity of 3.836GW by 2025, the ministry said in a statement after the completion of a two-stage selection process over the past two weeks.
The ministry would hold an auction by the end of next month to select offshore wind farm developers to build the remaining 1.66GW capacity, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) told a news conference.
“Those who did not win contracts are allowed to participate in the auction,” Kung added.
Seven wind farms off the coast of Changhua County would have the largest capacity — 2.4GW — by 2025, while three in Taoyuan, Miaoli and Yunlin will have a combined capacity of 1.436GW.
Two wind farms — separately operated by Swancor Holding Co Ltd (上緯) and Wpd Taiwan Energy Co Ltd (達德能源), the local subsidiary of Germany-based Wpd Group — would together generate 0.738GW by 2020, the ministry said.
From 2021 to 2025, the Wpd Taiwan unit in Yunlin and eight other wind farms, whose developers comprise four foreign investors and two government-backed companies, would generate 3.098GW of electricity, it said.
The developers of the eight wind farms are Wpd Taiwan, Denmark’s Orsted A/S, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), Canada’s Northland Power Inc (NPI), China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼) and state-run utility Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), the ministry said.
Between 2021 and 2025, Wpd Taiwan plans to bring online another wind farm off Taoyuan, while Orsted and CIP would operate two farms in Changhua.
CSC, Taipower and NPI would each operate one wind farm off Changhua during the period, ministry data showed.
There are still some challenges for the developers to overcome before their wind farms can connect to the grid, Bureau of Energy Director-General Lin Chuan-neng (林全能) said, citing deposits and construction permits.
In addition, the companies are required to draft “localization” plans to explain how they will boost ties with Taiwanese suppliers, as the ministry plans to build a local supply chain for wind turbines and undersea foundations, Lin said.
The project to ramp up offshore capacity by 2025 is expected to generate about 20,000 jobs and attract investments valued at NT$962.5 billion (US$32.51 billion), data showed.
The ministry said two local companies, cement producer Asia Cement Corp (亞泥) and textile supplier Lealea Enterprise Co (力麗), did not win wind farm contracts.
In related news, Taipower yesterday signed a NT$25 billion procurement contract with Luxembourg-based marine construction company Jan De Nul Group and Japan’s Hitachi Ltd to build 21 offshore wind turbines in Changhua’s Fangyuan Township (芳苑).
Each turbine would have an installed capacity of 5.2 megawatts, Hitachi said in a statement.
The three companies would start examining the ocean bed off Changhua this month and the construction of the turbines is scheduled to start next year, it said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last