Ørsted Names Siemens Gamesa Preferred Supplier For 900 Megawatt Taiwan Offshore Wind Farm
Global offshore wind leader Ørsted has named Spanish wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa as its preferred supplier for its 900 megawatt (MW) Greater Changhua offshore wind projects off the coast of Taiwan, which are expected to begin construction in 2021.
Ørsted currently has the rights for four offshore wind sites worth a total of 2.4 gigawatts (GW) in the Greater Changhua area, located 60 kilometers off the coast of Changhua County. In May, Ørsted was awarded 900 MW of grid capacity to build 605 MW at Changhua 1 and 295 MW at Changhua 2. A month later, Taiwan’s Bureau of Energy announced the winners of its second wind auction, in which it awarded Ørsted a further 920 MW over two sites. Ørsted received environmental approval for its site development in December of 2017 and this week it announced Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy as its preferred wind turbine supplier for the first 900 MW.
“As the market leader in offshore wind, we have more than 20 years of experience in developing local supply chains, and we share the government’s ambition of making the Changhua offshore wind farms not just a cornerstone in Taiwan’s green transition, but also a vehicle for kick-starting a new industry,” said Martin Neubert, CEO of Ørsted Offshore Wind. “Ørsted has gone the extra mile and advocated an accelerated local nacelle assembly facility with SGRE for the long-term benefits of the offshore wind industry in Taiwan.”
Specifically, Spanish wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa will provide 112 of its SG 8.0-167 DD offshore wind turbines, with construction expected to begin in 2021. As part of the signed contract — which will take effect following the signing of a Power Purchase Agreement by Ørsted sometime by the end of the year and the company’s final investment decision, which it expects to make in March of next year — Siemens Gamesa has also committed to building a local nacelle factory by 2021.
“Building large-scale wind farms in the offshore conditions of the Taiwan straits is a new journey for Ørsted,” added Matthias Bausenwein, Ørsted’s General Manager for Asia Pacific. “We’re delighted to work with our experienced partner Siemens Gamesa in adopting a typhoon-proof technology for our Greater Changhua offshore wind farms. SGRE’s mature localisation plan was a key reason for selecting them as our preferred turbine supplier.”
Ørsted is also the co-owner of Taiwan’s first offshore wind farm, the 8 MW Formosa 1 wind farm and its under-construction 128 MW expansion. The 8 MW demonstration phase, which was completed back in October of 2016 and consisted of only two offshore wind turbines, is now being expanded with 20 of Siemens Gamesa’s SWT-6.0-154 wind turbines, with construction expected to begin in 2019.
Supplying wind turbines to Taiwan requires that they be specifically designed for the region’s regular typhoon conditions — a requirement that I dug into in further detail earlier this month. The SG 8.0-167 DD offshore wind turbine is a variant that Siemens Gamesa specifically designed for the Asia Pacific market. The turbines are rated at 8 MW capacity and boast a 167-meter diameter with a swept area of 21,900 square meters, utilizing the SGRE B81 blades which each measure 81.4 meters.
“We’re glad that our long-term partnership with Ørsted continues to grow in Asia Pacific,” explained Andreas Nauen, CEO of the Offshore Business Unit at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy. “It’s on Ørsted’s request and to meet the schedule of the first 900MW Greater Changhua projects that we would implement an accelerated set-up of a nacelle assembly facility in Taichung Harbour to start production in 2021, ahead of the timeline communicated by the government for localisation activities.”
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