Semco Maritime, PTSC M&C to Deliver Hai Long Offshore Substations

The developer of Taiwan’s Hai Long 2 and Hai Long 3 offshore wind farms has signed a preferred supplier agreement for two offshore substations with a consortium consisting of Semco Maritime and PTSC M&C.

Under the contract, the consortium is responsible for the design, engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of the two offshore substations, including jacket foundations, which will be manufactured at PTSC M&C’s yard facilities in Vungtau, Vietnam.

According to Semco Maritime, this is the largest offshore substation contract awarded for a Taiwanese project to date and also marks an entrance into the Taiwanese offshore wind market for the consortium partners.

“The order provides us with a solid footprint in the exciting Asian offshore wind market, which is developing at a fast pace”, said Frank Holm, Vice President Renewables, Semco Maritime.

The consortium, together with ISC Consulting Engineers, will start working on the project from the fourth quarter of this year. Offshore installation is planned for 2024 and the completion of commissioning for 2026, when the last phase of the Hai Long project is scheduled to be ready for operation.

The 1,044 MW Hai Long offshore wind project, located 50 kilometres off the coast of Changhua county, will be developed in three stages, with construction expected to begin in 2023 and commissioning in 2025.

According to Felipe Montero, Project Director of Hai Long, the signing of the preferred supplier agreement for the offshore substations is another key milestone for the project on the way to financial close and towards construction phase.

Last month, the Hai Long Offshore Wind consortium, comprising Northland Power, Yushan Energy, and Mitsui & Co, signed a preferred supplier agreement for the project’s onshore substation with TECO Electric & Machinery Co.

The project has three separate grid allocations – Hai Long 2a – 300 MW, Hai Long 2b – 232 MW, and Hai Long 3 – 512 MW, with only Hai Long 2A being under Taiwan’s feed-in-tariff program and requiring localisation of the components including the transformer, GIS, and switchgear of the onshore substation.

Once fully up and running in 2026, the Hai Long offshore wind project is expected to power 1.55 million households in Taiwan.