Spanish offshore wind turbine manufacturing giant Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy announced this week that it has been awarded the firm wind turbine supply contract for the 640 megawatt (MW) Yunlin offshore wind power plant in Taiwan.
Formosa 1 Phase 1
Image Credit: Swancor
The 640 MW Yunlin offshore wind power plant is being developed by German wind power developer wpd and will be built 6 kilometers off the coast of Yunlin County, on the country’s west coast. The project was awarded to wpd in May of 2018 along with the 350 MW Guanyin project which is set to be built 2 kilometers off the coast of Taoyuan County, on the country’s north-west coast.
Siemens Gamesa was announced as preferred supplier in May of 2018, and this week received the firm order for 80 of its SG 8.0-167 DD offshore wind turbines — the first firm order for this turbine in the Asia Pacific region for Siemens Gamesa and which includes a 15-year long-term service agreement.
The 8 MW turbines boast a rotor with a 167-meter diameter and a swept area of 21,900 m2, and are expected to be installed beginning in 2020, with construction on the project as a whole expected some time this year.
“We are extremely satisfied that the preferred supplier agreement we reached with wpd offshore one year ago has materialized into a firm order,” said Andreas Nauen, CEO of the Offshore Business Unit at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy. “It is furthermore encouraging to be able to introduce the SG 8.0-167 DD in APAC with an order of this volume. There is an increasing number of such sizeable opportunities in the region, and we are looking forward to contributing further to the growth of offshore wind in this part of the world.”
“We are very proud that all the preparation work we did together with wpd and our suppliers unfolds into this important milestone,” added Niels Steenberg, SGRE General Manager Offshore for the APAC region. “As the first large scale project in Taiwan, Yunlin will be setting up the scene for other later developments, and we will be needing continued support from local authorities and our partners to take on the challenges ahead.”
The 640 MW Yunlin project is an early part of Taiwan’s burgeoning offshore wind industry, which currently boasts a pipeline of at least 5.5 gigawatts (GW). The Taiwan Bureay of Energy awarded 3.8 GW of capacity in May of 2018, followed in June by awarding another 1.6 GW. Currently, Taiwan’s only offshore wind farm is the 8 MW Formosa 1 Phase 1 offshore wind demonstration project. However, Formosa 1’s Phase 2 reached financial close in June of 2018, which is expected to see delivery and construction of its Siemens Gamesa SWT-6.0-154 wind turbines this year.
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