Offshore wind major Ørsted said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Century Wind Power (CWP), a subsidiary of Century Iron & Steel Industrial, to collaborate on turbine foundation manufacturing for Greater Changhua projects.
Based on the MoU, both parties will work on the common goal to make CWP become a preferred supplier to begin the substructure serial manufacturing works at Taipei Harbor early 2020, to be able to build the foundations in the Greater Changhua offshore wind project right afterwards.
Matthias Bausenwein , general manager Asia Pacific and chairman Taiwan said, “Local content has been placed at the center of our project development activities. In the past year, the local Ørsted team has met over 170 Taiwanese companies and identified 15 companies for close collaboration. CWP has a very strong background in large-scale steel manufacturing and shown significant ambition to invest in offshore wind manufacturing business.
“Today we are very pleased to partner with CWP and we look forward to further knowledge transfer and ensure close collaboration with CWP. Today’s success also shows that Taiwan has great potential in developing a strong supply chain for offshore wind.”
CWP chairman Lai Wen Hsiang said, “Following Taiwan government’s policy for localizing offshore wind, CWP has set up a new factory in Taipei and planned to construct two plants on its own 16 hectares of land. In addition, there will be 16 hectares of storage area to store the underwater jacket foundation substructure. The CWP factory at Taipei Harbor will be completed by end of 2019 for test operation. The total investment amount is estimated to be NT$ 5 billion and will create 300 to 500 local jobs. With the collaboration with Ørsted and European professional certification institution TUV, CWP will have international standards of quality management system and to become the preferred underwater foundation manufacturing supplier for Ørsted.”
Ørsted’s Greater Changhua projects include four sites located in 35 to 60 kilometers off the Changhua coast. The total capacity is expected to be 2.4GW and can power 2.8 million households in Taiwan. Currently Greater Changhua projects are in the Environmental Impact Assessment review stage. Once the projects have received all permits, the onshore construction will start in 2019.