Ørsted has held the groundbreaking ceremony in the Port of Taichung for the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) base of the 900 MW Greater Changhua 1 & 2a offshore wind farms.
Scheduled to be operational from 2022 and onwards, the O&M base is the first of its kind that Ørsted has invested in building in Taiwan and across the Asia-Pacific region. It will become the largest O&M base in Taiwan once completed, the developer said.
Ørsted has signed contracts with MOH Associates Inc., a local firm of the MAA Group, and Tung Kai Technology Engineering Co., Ltd., to be responsible for the design and construction of the O&M base.
“The O&M base well demonstrates that Ørsted is making long-term commitment to Taiwan through building wind farms and ramping up local O&M competence to not only serve operational needs for a long period of time, but also to create an offshore wind value chain in Taiwan,” Matthias Bausenwein , President of Ørsted Asia-Pacific, said.
“The investment of building Ørsted’s first ever O&M base in Asia once again sets Taiwan at the forefront of offshore wind expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, covering all phases of the wind farm life cycle.”
Green Design
The O&M base in Taiwan will share features with Ørsted’s O&M facilities in Europe, taking into consideration the local weather potentials by adopting green solutions, such as recycling of rainwater, maximal application of local green materials, solar panels, and charging stations for electric cars and scooters.
The facility will have a gold rating from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), making it the flagship O&M center for Ørsted Asia-Pacific.
“The fact that we are making this investment in building own O&M base in Taiwan serves as an excellent example of how we go beyond Taiwan’s localization requirements,” Christy Wang , General Manager of Ørsted in Taiwan, said.
”This is underlined by the fact that we partnered with local companies for the design and construction of the O&M base. It is expected that the O&M base can stimulate growth of related O&M businesses and create local direct and indirect quality jobs with our contractors and suppliers during the O&M construction phase.”
The 900 MW Greater Changhua 1 and 2a project will feature 111 Siemens Gamesa 8 MW turbines installed on jacket foundations some 35 to 50 kilometres offshore. The wind farms are scheduled to be commissioned in 2022.