Siemens Gamesa Signs MoU In Taiwan For Offshore Wind Development

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Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy has this week signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Taiwan International Ports Corporation to investigate the possibility of developing an offshore wind manufacturing and deployment site.

Siemens Gamesa Renewable EnergyThe non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) serves as the first step toward a potential new manufacturing and deployment hub for Siemens Gamesa as it continues to streamline its business and solidify itself as one of the world’s leading wind technology manufacturers. Late last month the company unveiled two new wind turbine offerings that pave the way for its new manufacturing philosophy, “One Segment/One Technology,” in which the company will have only one technology per business segment by 2020.

Announced on Wednesday, Siemens Gamesa signed the MoU with the Taiwan International Ports Corporation which will lead to a “collaborative investigation” into the development of potential manufacturing sites for offshore wind components, office facilities, and staging areas including storage, pre-assembly, and quayside load-out.

“Signing the MoU demonstrates our strong desire to contribute to the development of offshore wind in Taiwan. We fully believe in the potential of this emerging market, and wish to support it with our vast knowledge as an industry leader,” explained Andreas Nauen, CEO Offshore, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy.

Siemens Gamesa also recently opened a new office in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, intended to give the company greater reach and response in the Asia Pacific region, and will act as an offshore wind regional hub alongside regional offices in Japan and Korea.

“The offshore wind industry in Taiwan is today looking at over 10 GW of projects under planning according to official information,” added Nauen. “During 2017, strong supportive signs were shown by the Taiwanese government, with detailed grid capacity planning, and an increase of the long term ambitions. Similarly, significant milestones have been completed in the rest of the region. Japan is developing the first utility-scale projects, and Korea has now commissioned their first commercial-sized offshore wind power plant. We look forward to helping ensure that the right infrastructure is in place, as well as maintaining efforts towards further cost reductions.”

If we take recent developments as representative of a larger trend, it appears that Taiwan is quickly becoming a new breeding ground for offshore wind development in the Asia Pacific region.

In January DONG Energy (now Ørsted) acquired a 35% ownership in Taiwan’s first offshore wind project, the 120 MW (megawatt) Formosa 1 project, which has started out life as an 8 MW demonstration project. Located off the coast of Miaoli in western Taiwan, the second phase of the project is set to see construction begin in 2019. At the same time, DONG Energy revealed that it was developing its own projects in the country, specifically, four offshore wind projects in the Changhua coast regional which would have a capacity of at least 2 GW (gigawatts) when they are completed some time between 2021 and 2024. This week, Ørsted announced that it had moved closer to making these Greater Changhua projects a reality, signing several MoUs with local developers and manufacturers.


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Joshua S Hill

I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, and I believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), and can be found writing articles for a variety of other sites. Check me out at about.me for more.

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