All awarded projects beat Taiwan's buzzer to sign offshore wind contracts
East Asian nation’s Energy Administration confirmed developers in its struggling Round 3.2 have committed to connect to grid by 2030
All five developers in Taiwan’s struggling Round 3.2 offshore wind procurement round have submitted contracts committing to their projects –despite lacking offtake deals.
Taiwan’s Energy Department under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) reported that one developer had already submitted its contract, while “the remaining four wind farm projects submitted their contract application documents today (9th) for the signing process.”
Administrative contracts commit developers to specific timelines and milestones, including grid connection for Round 3.2 awards between 2028-2030.
The remaining developers that beat today’s buzzer include: Shinfox’s Youde project with 700MW; Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP)’s Feng Miao 2 with 600MW; Corio/TotalEnergies' 360MW Formosa 3; and Enervest with 240MW.
Today's deadline was set by the EA in response to lagging development of projects awarded in its latest procurement.
The projects were awarded last August in the nation’s multi-phase Round 3 that now aims to add more than 9GW to its existing 5.3GW of operating or near-operational capacity.
Taiwan leads the Asia-Pacific region outside China in sector development, with projects in operation including JERA, Macquarie, and SRE’s 376MW Formosa 2 and Orsted's 900MW Changhua 1 & 2. Another 3GW is in late-stage development for commissioning this year.
While its first two rounds saw great success, they were heavily subsidized or had only lenient local content requirements.
The first two phases of its Round 3 however have struggled to gain traction as subsidies have declined zero while local content requirements have ramped that resulted in skyrocketing costs to a reported $190/MWh.
Its Round 3.1 awarded seven projects totaling some 3GW in 2022, but only five followed through with signed administrative contracts.
Corio/TotalEnergies' Formosa 3, awarded in this most recent phase, was widely seen as ripe for cancellation, with staff layoffs already confirmed, making the contract signing surprising.
The MOEA said it would review the applications and that “any awarded developer failing to meet the requirements for contract signing will have their wind farm allocation qualification and capacity revoked.”
(Copyright)