Seajacks Zaratan Resumes Wind Turbine Installation at Yunlin Offshore Wind Farm

Wind Farm Update

May 7, 2024, by Adrijana Buljan

Wind turbine installation at the Yunlin offshore wind farm site in Taiwan has resumed with two wind turbines already installed in this year’s campaign and 36 of the project’s total 80 Siemens Gamesa 8 MW units in place so far. The wind turbines are being installed by the vessel Seajacks Zaratan.

“Following weeks of hard work on monopile installation, seabed preparation, as well as preparatory works completed at the pre-assembly site in Taichung and vessel mobilization, our wind turbine generator installation campaign is off to a strong start and we’ve successfully installed this season’s first two WTGs in Taiwanese waters,” Skyborn Renewables said via social media on 7 May.

The 2024 offshore construction campaign started this March with the installation of monopiles after the winter break.

So far, 56 monopile foundations and 53 transition pieces have been installed, as well as 28 out of 69 inner-array cables and all 12 export cables.

The monopile installation will continue in the coming weeks, alongside transition piece installation and cable installation activities, according to Skyborn, which said the project team and all contractors were “working at full pace to meet the scheduled targets and install all remaining monopile foundations, inner array grid and wind turbine generators during the course of 2024”.

Fred. Olsen Windcarrier, in cooperation with Shimizu, is responsible for the transportation and installation of monopile foundations.

Major offshore construction work at the Yunlin offshore wind farm started in December 2020 with the installation of the first monopile. The first of the project’s 80 Siemens Gamesa 8 MW wind turbines was installed in April 2021.

The project is already producing electricity and has fed over 1.1 TWh of renewable energy into the Taiwanese grid, according to Skyborn Renewables.

Once in full operation, the 640 MW Yunlin offshore wind farm will power over 600,000 households.

The project is owned by the Yunneng Wind Power consortium which 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.