Innogy Enters the Offshore Wind Energy Market Taiwan
Essen, Germany / Taipei, Taiwan - Taiwan is pursuing an ambitious plan to expand offshore wind energy and would like to get out of nuclear energy by 2025. This offers great opportunities for German and European companies to benefit from market developments.
Innogy, one of Europe’s leading energy companies, has partnered with Asia Cement Corporation to continue the development of a major offshore wind project off the coast of Taiwan. The two companies have agreed a strategic partnership to further develop the Chu Feng offshore wind project, which intends to participate in the next grid allocation round in Taiwan. With a planned installed capacity of up to 448 megawatt (MW), it will be located off the northwest coast of Taiwan near Hsinchu City, in the wind-rich Taiwan Strait.
Innogy opened a local office in Taipei in 2018 to drive its business in Taiwan and the wider Asia-Pacific region with a target to build up regional knowledge and expertise by joining forces with local partners. The partnership for the Chu Feng offshore wind project is a perfect strategic fit for Innogy and another milestone in capturing value accretive growth options in the field of offshore wind.
“The Chu Feng project will enable us to enter this growing market with a strong local partner at our side, whose local expertise complements our global experience and technical know-how, and who share our ambition to drive the growth of offshore wind in Taiwan”, welcomes Sven Utermöhlen, Senior Vice President Renewables Operations Offshore at Innogy SE, the cooperation.
As in Germany, the energy sector in Taiwan is also undergoing radical change. By 2025, the government wants Taiwan to phase out nuclear energy, which in the past covered up to 20 percent of the country's electricity supply. In return, renewable energies, and in particular offshore wind energy, are to be greatly expanded. By 2025, offshore capacities in Taiwan are expected to reach 5,500 MW.
Innogy is one of the leading operators of offshore wind farms worldwide. The company was involved in the provision of over 2,500 MW of offshore wind capacity in Europe and is currently developing numerous other offshore projects worldwide. Innogy was most recently successful at the offshore wind auctions in Great Britain, Germany and France. For the Sofia offshore development project (100 percent Innogy), the German-based energy company was awarded the contract for the project with a planned installed capacity of up to 1,400 MW at last year's auction in the UK.
Source: IWR Online, 06 Apr 2020
