Delayed and disrupted but Taiwan's new wind power giant cuts ribbon at last
Partners including Skyborn and TotalEnergies hail Yunlin project which struggled through supply chain issues, pandemic and local content squeeze
Taiwan finally cut the ribbon on the Yunlin offshore wind farm, whose delayed path to completion highlighted the challenges facing the Asian island’s sector.
The 640MW project becomes Taiwan’s second-largest wind farm behind Orsted’s 900MW Greater Changhua 1&2 and was hailed as “a landmark project” for the island’s energy transition by Skyborn Renewables, its lead developer which holds around 32%.
Oil giant TotalEnergies, which owns 29.5% of Yunlin, said its role as technical operator will “allow us to strengthen our offshore wind competencies as we look ahead to our future projects in Germany, Denmark, and the UK”.
However, Yunlin’s path to completion has been far from straightforward and exemplified many of the challenges facing the offshore wind sector in recent years, both globally and specifically in Taiwan.
Yunlin, whose other shareholders are Thai utility EGCO and Japanese trading house Sojitz was given the go ahead by the government in Taiwan’s first procurement round in 2018 and had been slated for completion in 2020.
The project with its 8MW Siemens Gamesa turbines was among the first offshore wind projects awarded generous government feed-in-tariff subsidies averaging TWD5,000/MWh ($165/MWh), which have since been phased out.
Despite these generous rates, the wind farm struggled to get steel in the water.
It had trouble finding locally made components under strict localisation requirements, while its inexperienced installation firm, Sapura of Malaysia, had multiple construction mishaps that led to delays.
After a 2023 financing extension offshore construction finally got back on track early last year, with Fred Olsen Windcarrier and Shimizu collaborating on transportation and installation of monopile foundations, which they completed in September.
Taiwan is the Asia-Pacific's offshore wind leader outside China with some 5GW of capacity either in operation or late-stage development and another 5GW awarded so far in its Round 3, which aims to spur 15GW of new projects.
Local content requirements in Taiwan and an underdeveloped supply chain raised sector costs to among the highest in the world, with developers by the end of last year saying they need some $190/MWh to progress projects.
With Taipower – the local utility which took Yunlin’s power – no longer in the market, developers have instead been relying on corporate power purchase agreements, but businesses have balked at the prices.