The Chong Neng (中能) offshore wind farm project yesterday said that it had signed a preferred supplier agreement with MHI Vestas Offshore Wind A/S as it aims to meet its localization requirements.
Chong Neng is a joint venture between China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼) and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners K/S (CIP), with CSC holding a 51 percent stake and CIP the other 49 percent.
It is to develop a 300 megawatt wind farm off the coast of Changhua County, adjacent to CIP’s Chang Fang (彰芳) and Xidao (西島) wind farms, which are under construction and are set to have a combined capacity of 600 megawatts.
With construction scheduled for 2022, the Chong Neng farm is set to be integrated with the national power grid by 2024.
“We will develop this wind farm hand in hand with CIP, which will create bulk orders that in turn will stimulate the local supply chain,” Chong Neng chairman Wang Shyi-chin (王錫欽) told a media conference in Taipei yesterday.
Wang, also a CSC president, said that MHI Vestas would install about 100 9.5 megawatt wind turbines at the three farms.
Denmark-based MHI Vestas is the sole turbine manufacturer approved by the government due to its heavy reliance on local suppliers and Wang said that as a result the Chong Neng wind farm would be the most “localized” in the world.
“We aim to localize up to 27 of the multiple sections that constitute the project,” he said.
The construction of submarine foundations would see the participation of about 20 local firms, including CSBC Corp Taiwan (台灣國際造船), Wanchi Steel Industrial Co (萬機鋼鐵) and CTCI Machinery Corp (俊鼎機械), he said.
Installations would be carried out by CSBC-DEME Wind Engineering Co (台船環海) using its new main installation vessel, he added.
Meanwhile, China Ecotek Corp (中宇環保), Teco Electric and Machinery Co (東元電機), Fortune Electric Co (華城電機) and Star Energy Corp (星能) would remain Chong Neng’s preferred suppliers for the construction of its onshore substations, Wang said.
Chong Neng would use CSC’s steel plates in its construction process, Wang said, adding that the overall wind-power industry, with a combined capacity of 5.7 gigawatts, would generate demand for 1.6 million tonnes of steel plates by 2025.
CSC would ship about half of that amount over the next five years based on the company’s annual production of 1 million tonnes per year, he said.
CIP Taiwan project office chief executive Jesper Krarup Holst said that Chong Neng would grow its small team of 20 employees to between 50 and 80 local and overseas professionals in the next 18 months.
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