With many of the world's top 20 sites for offshore wind speed located in the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan is blessed with the ideal conditions for developing offshore wind power. So in addition to solar energy, offshore wind power is another important resource that will help the nation reach its target of generating 20 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
Objective
Taiwan's goal is to raise its offshore wind power capacity to 5.7 gigawatts (GW) by 2025, which will yield 21.5 billion kilowatt-hours of clean, home-grown energy each year and cut carbon emissions by 11.92 million metric tons annually. This will also generate nearly NT$1 trillion (US$31.7 billion) in total investments and create 20,000 job opportunities.
Development strategies
◆ Phase 1: Subsidize demonstration wind farms, attract private investments
The nation's first two demonstration wind turbines became operational in 2017 with a combined capacity of 8 megawatts (MW). All demonstration wind farms are scheduled to be completed by 2020, providing total capacity of 238 MW.
◆ Phase 2: Announce potential wind farms sites, accept applications from developers
Authorities completed the selection procedure in April 2018 and allocated 3,836 MW of capacity to developers. The auction process was completed two months later with an additional 1,664 MW capacity allocated. This total 5.5 GW capacity allocated to developers will come online from 2020 to 2025, and when combined with the demonstration farms will yield approximately 5.7 GW altogether.
◆ Phase 3: Guide development of offshore zones, transform domestic supply chain into full industry
The entire supply chain consisting of wind turbine components, towers, underwater foundations, submarine cables, and marine engineering and shipbuilding will be consolidated into one industry to take on the Asia-Pacific market.