Orsted A/S yesterday said it would settle fees related to covering the costs of Woen-Jinn Harbour Engineering Co’s (穩晉) pre-installation expenditures after the Taiwanese offshore cable installation company decided to back out of a deal.
The fees would include the project feasibility assessment, certificate of vessel conformity, evaluation of vessel transformation/construction and recruitment and training of marine engineering professionals.
When the Danish energy firm made its final investment decision in May, Woen-Jinn asked to terminate the NT$1 billion (US$32.21 million) contract to install a significant scope of array cables that would secure substantial work for Orsted’s wind farm projects in the greater Changhua region.
The contract provided grounds for Woen-Jinn investing in the construction of a cable-laying vessel, the WoenJinn#7.
Woen-Jinn previously said it would invest up to NT$2 billion in the vessel, which was originally scheduled to be completed by next year, but its board of directors decided to withdraw from the contract, citing financial concerns.
The company’s shareholders had called for such a move, as Woen-Jinn has had trouble completing personnel recruitment and training on time, online news outlet Storm Media (風傳媒) reported yesterday.
Woen-Jinn hired 20 more employees since it began collaborating with Orsted, then known as DONG Energy, in 2016.
Orsted established a team of 10 specialists to assist Woen-Jinn with developing all required standards and competencies.
Woen-Jinn has completed the offshore cable installation for the first phase of the Formosa 1 project in the waters off Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南), which is scheduled to be operational by the end of this year, becoming Taiwan’s first offshore wind farm project to generate power.
It is not known if Orsted will seek foreign companies to help with cable installation.
The Kaohsiung Marine Engineering Association has reportedly said there are no other available cable-laying vessels in Taiwan.
“Based on the local content rule, the company in question would have to submit relevant documents supporting the reasons for foreign purchases,” Cheng Ju-min (鄭如閔), an energy technology division senior specialist at the Bureau of Energy, said by telephone.
Orsted on Friday inked a deal with South Korea-based LS Cable & System Corp to supply submarine cables to the Changhua 1 and 2a wind farms, located 35km to 50km off the coast of Changhua County.
The construction of the wind farms is to be completed by 2021-2022, Orsted has said, adding that they would have a capacity of approximately 900 megawatts and be capable of supplying about 1 million Taiwanese households.
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