Skyborn Renewables and its partners in the Yunneng Wind Power consortium that owns the Yunlin offshore wind project in Taiwan have signed an extended financing agreement to complete the construction of the 640 MW offshore wind farm. The project is now on track for completion according to an amended installation schedule.
The news comes after reports saying the Yunlin offshore wind farm was facing financial issues emerged at the beginning of this year. The financial woes were said to be caused by mounting cost overruns as the project encountered delays due to construction challenges and the pandemic. This put a question mark on the project’s completion and sparked a debate on the financial stability of offshore wind projects that were just entering construction in Taiwan.
The Yunneng Wind Power consortium comprises Skyborn Renewables (25 per cent), TotalEnergies (23 per cent), EGCO Group (25 per cent), and a Sojitz Corp-led consortium (27 per cent) which also includes Chugoku Electric Power, Chudenko Corporation, Shikoku Electric Power, and JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation.
Major offshore construction work on the 640 MW wind farm started in December 2020 with the installation of the first monopile and the first of the project’s 80 Siemens Gamesa 8 MW wind turbines was installed in April 2021.
The monopile foundations were initially being installed by Sapura Energy Berhad, which issued a contract termination notice to the Yunneng Wind Power consortium at the beginning of last year, citing delays in the project completion from September 2020 to September 2023 as the main reason. The Malaysian company, for which this was the first contract in the offshore wind sector, also said that it would pursue its claims via the dispute resolution process prescribed in the contract.
Following Sapura leaving the project, the monopile installation work was picked up by the Abu Dhabi-based National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) and, around the same time, Yunneng contracted Havfram for Project Management and Owners Engineer Services within the foundation installation package for the Yunlin wind farm.
According to information about the project shared last year, wind turbine installation is set to continue this year , with one of Eneti’s Seajacks vessels booked to undertake the work.
Following the signing of the agreement on extended financing, Thomas Karst , CEO of Skyborn, commented on the progress of the project: “Thanks to the good cooperation of all stakeholders and the tenacity and dedication of the project team, the 2023 installation campaign is well on track and preparations for the 2024 installation campaign are almost completed”.
Once completed, the 640 MW project will produce enough clean energy to meet the energy demand of more than 600,000 Taiwanese households. The Yunlin offshore wind farm already has two 20-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) in place, both with Taipower.