The Bureau of Energy (BOE) has agreed to allow Yunneng Wind Power Co (允能風力發電), the project developer of a 640 megawatt (MW) wind farm off the coast of Yunlin County, to adjust its shareholding structure as the company faces financial difficulties.
Yunneng is 48 percent owned by German wind farm developer Wpd AG, 27 percent owned by a consortium led by Japan’s Sojitz Corp and 25 percent owned by Thailand’s Electricity Generating Public Co Ltd.
Wpd plans to sell a 23 percent stake in Yunneng to French energy giant TotalEnergies SE, hoping that capital from the new shareholder would help maintain the Yunlin project’s normal operations and safeguard suppliers’ interests.
Photo: Lin Jing-hua, Taipei Times
“The company [Yunneng] said it was hit by COVID-19-related cost overruns and would not be able to survive without the injection of capital,” said Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲), director of the bureau’s Energy Technology Division. “To prevent disruption of the project, we granted them an exception, even though this is not what we want to see.”
The bureau said that wind farm developers should retain at least a 50 percent stake in their projects to ensure that they remain responsible for the project’s construction and operations.
Before giving its approval, the bureau required an independent watchdog to verify that Yunneng was in dire financial trouble and ensure that all the funds obtained from TotalEnergies would be used on project construction, Chen said.
Yunneng is banned from any more changes in ownership, or it would face a fine of NT$350 million (US$12.66 million), he said.
It has been asked why Yunneng, which has so far installed only four of the Yunlin project’s 80 turbines, would only be 25 percent held by Wpd after the share sale.
Wpd Taiwan Energy Co (達德能源) chairwoman Yuni Wang (王雲怡) said that Wpd remains committed to the completion of the project and that selling large portions of projects is a “common business model” used elsewhere by wind farm developers to free up capital.
“Going forward, Wpd will comply with BOE ownership rules on future projects,” Wang added.
Looking ahead to round 3 of Taiwan’s offshore wind farm development, Chen said that the bureau is going to “keep an even closer eye” on developers’ financial ability to complete projects.
“The 50 percent ownership red line will stay in place, if not reinforced,” Chen said. “We will not allow Taiwan’s offshore wind development market to become a place for foreign developers to play shell games.”
Holly Chu (朱佑翎), a senior associate with law firm Eiger, said that once a precedent has been set, it might be difficult to prevent other companies from following Yunneng’s lead if they want to reduce their exposure to the Taiwanese market.
“If developers do not feel comfortable with their projects here, selling a part of the project could be a part of their risk management strategy,” Chu said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to