Germany-based RWE plans to develop six offshore wind farms in sea areas to be designated by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) for open-bid development of offshore wind farms in the third phase, according to chairman Bragg Chung for RWE Renewables Taiwan.
Each offshore wind farm will have an installation capacity of 6.2GW, Chung said.
As MOEA will announce a pilot project of setting up floating offshore wind platforms specifically for demonstration and feasibility study by the end of 2022, RWE is interested in developing floating offshore wind farms in Taiwan, Chung noted. RWE has been developing floating offshore wind farms in the US, Spain and Norway since 2018, and will complete or be developing such wind farms with a total installation capacity of 1GW in 2030, Chung added.
RWE has completed 18 offshore wind farms with a total installation capacity of 3GM globally and aims to increase the total installation capacity to 8GW in 2030, Chung indicated.
As compared with fixed structures of offshore wind turbines, floating offshore wind platforms are structure flexibly anchored, moored, or connected by steel cables to seabeds so that offshore wind turbines can be installed in deep sea areas usually far away from the coastline.
Taiwan expects to cumulatively complete the installation of more than 200 offshore turbines, including an ultra-large one with an installation capacity of 15MW, by the end of 2022, MOEA said.
As of the end of March 2022, Taiwan's development of renewable energy reached a cumulative total installation capacity of 11.930GW, consisting of 8.045GWp for PV, 1.062GW for onshore (land-based) and offshore wind, 2.094GW for hydraulic power generation, 724MW for biomass power generation, 5MW for geothermal power generation.
