Formosa 1 is an offshore wind farm developed near Miaoli, in the west coast of Taiwan. The 128MW wind farm is Taiwan’s first commercial-scale offshore wind project.
The farm was developed in two phases – a demonstration phase with two wind turbines and a commercial phase.
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Two 4MW wind turbines were installed as part of the demonstration phase in November 2016 and commenced operations in April 2017. The second phase involved the addition of 30 additional turbines with a combined capacity of 120MW. The phase two construction works were completed in October 2019.
The green power generated by the wind farm is sufficient to power 128,000 households in Taiwan.
Swancor Renewable, a subsidiary of chemical and composite material manufacturer Swancor Holding, is the project developer.
Formosa is one of the three projects approved by Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs Bureau of Energy as part of its target to build 1,000 wind turbines by 2030 to support the Taiwanese Government’s plans to produce 4GW of electricity through offshore wind. It also announced 36 sectors for offshore wind farm development in 2015.
Formosa 1 wind farm project ownership
Macquarie Capital and Orsted (formerly DONG Energy) entered an agreement with Swancor Renewable to purchase 25% and 35% interests in the project respectively.
In December 2018, JERA had signed a deal with Swancor and Macquarie Capital, for the acquisition of a combined 32.5% equity interest in the offshore wind project. Swancor and Macquarie Capital will continue to be project shareholders.
Swancor Renewable holds the remaining 7.5% stake in the project.
Formosa 1 offshore wind farm details
Approximately 6km off the west coast of Miaoli in the Strait of Taiwan spread over an area of 11km², the wind farm lies in water depths between 15m and 30m.
During the demonstration phase, the wind farm was equipped with two Siemens SWT-4.0-120 wind turbines, each with a rated capacity of 4MW. The turbines have a rotor diameter of 120m, 58.5m-long rotor blades and a swept area of 11,300m².
Wind turbines are installed on monopile foundations, using A2SEA’s Torben vessel. Siemens monitors the turbines from its remote diagnostic centre in Brande, Denmark, on a 24/7 basis.
The renewable energy generated by the wind farm will be directly transmitted to the proposed onshore transformer station.
Financing for the Taiwanese windfarm
The Changhua County Government signed a memorandum of understanding in March 2017 with Macquarie Formosa 1 and Swancor Renewable Energy to invest TW$210bn ($6.8bn) in the project.
In June 2018, Macquarie Group secured a project finance debt facility from a group of local and international banks for the project.
The final investment decision for the second phase of the wind farm project was taken in April 2018 and the financial close for the same was achieved in June 2018.
A consortium of eleven international and local Taiwanese banks, along with EKF, Denmark’s Export Credit Agency, provided NT$18.7bn ($627m) in project financing over a period of 16 years. Clifford Chance is the advisor to the project’s sponsors.
Power purchase agreement
A 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) was signed for the project based on the feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme with Taiwan Power Company for power off-take.
Contractors involved
Swancor Renewable engaged Sinotech Engineering Consultants for the construction of the offshore windfarm. Sinotech sub-contracted COWI for the turbine foundation design.
K2 Management acted as the general consultant and also conducted wind modelling and wind data analysis for the project.
Siemens was awarded a contract for supplying two 4MW turbines for the first phase of the Formosa windfarm. The company will also provide a ten-year service and maintenance programme for the turbines.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy supplied 20 additional units of 6MW SWT-6.0-154 wind turbines for the second phase of the Formosa 1 wind farm project.
IX provided technical and commercial advisory services on the wind turbines selection and tender. Appointed as the technical adviser for the project, Wind Minds provided advisory services on commercial issues, logistics and balance-of-plant works.
German company Palfinger Marine supplied two PF 8000 fixed-boom-type platform cranes for the project.
Tekmar Energy supplied its TEKLINK® cable protection system (CPS) to shield the underwater power cables during installation.
Woen Jinn Harbour performed the installation of the power cables and Tekmar Energy’s CPS.
Jan De Nul Group was awarded the contract for the design, procurement and installation of the wind turbine foundations for the second phase of the project in May 2018. The contract also included scouring protection and cable installation.
Jan De Nul Group selected JDR Cable Systems to manufacture and supply inter-array, export and land cables. The contract included the supply of 21km of inter-array cable, 13km of export cable and 16km of land cable to transmit power from the shore to the local substation.
CUEL was selected as a subcontractor to Jan De Nul for fabricating and supplying 20 transition pieces for phase two of the offshore windfarm.
EEW SPC was subcontracted by Jan De Nul to produce 20 monopile foundations for phase two of the wind farm.
Fortune Electric was awarded a contract for upgrade works on the onshore substation in Miaoli County.
