The Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) announced that the underwater foundation of the first 9.5MW offshore wind power plant in Asia produced by Taiwan has been officially completed and will go to the Changfang & Xidao Wind Farm for installation in July.
Today, the CIP Changfang & Xidao Offshore Wind Power Project held a press conference at Taipei Port, announcing that Asia's largest and first locally produced 9.5MW underwater foundation was officially completed and will be installed in the sea in July. Guests included Changfang & Xidao Project CEO Dennis Sanou, Marina Hsu, Managing Director of CIP Taiwan, Lai Wen-Hsiang, Chairman of Century Iron & Steel, and others.
Each of the underwater foundations uses about 2,500 metric tons of steel and weighs 1,300 tons. The working craft will transport 3 sets of loads of nearly 4,000 tons each to the wind farm. It is estimated that it will take 10-14 hours to reach the wind farm depending on sailing speed.
In 2018, CIP appointed Century Group to undertake the construction of 62 underwater foundations for the Changfang & Xidao Offshore Wind Farm at a cost of NT$16.5 billion, creating production capacity through economies of scale and assisting in investing in local supply chains. Century Group has also leased land in Taipei Port since 2017. At present, it has invested more than NT$13 billion to build local factories and investment supply chains, including Century Wind Power Taipei Port Factory, Century Iron & Steel Guanyin Factory and Yunlin Factory, Century Huaxin Taichung Factory, and investing in Taijiang General Zuo, etc. The Group will also inject an additional NT$50~ 60 billion to expand factories in Taipei Port and Taichung.
Marina Hsu pointed out that today is a small achievement, a condensation of all the flavors of life and a dedication to connect all of Changfang & Xidao to the grid on time by the end of next year. The capacity of the first and second phases of the Changfang & Xidao Offshore Wind Power Project is 100MW and 500MW, respectively and needs to be commercialized in 2022 and 2023.
After the meeting, a reporter talked about the average increase of domestic electricity prices by 8.4%. , Lai Wen-Hsiang stated that Taiwan's electricity prices have always been very cheap and this increase in electricity prices is reasonable. He supports the government to appropriately reflect reasonable cost increases. However, the recent fluctuations in raw materials will indeed affect unreceived orders.
According to government estimates, offshore wind power will drive a cumulative investment of NT$3.2 trillion and create 74,000 local jobs in 2035. Looking forward to its future wind power plan, Marina Hsu also stated that she will continue to cooperate with Century Iron & Steel to prepare for the third phase of block development.