Fred. Olsen Windcarrier, Shimizu to Take Over Yunlin Foundation Installation in 2024

September 1, 2023, by Adrijana Buljan

Fred. Olsen Windcarrier (FOWIC), in cooperation with Shimizu, has been awarded a contract for the transportation and installation of monopile foundations for the 640 MW Yunlin offshore wind farm, with the work under the contract set to start in February 2024.

For the foundation installation, the two companies will mobilise Shimizu’s vessel Blue Wind, which is currently working on the Ishikari Bay New Port Offshore Wind Farm project in Japan.

Blue Wind jack-up vessel at Nyuzen offshore wind farm; Photo: Shimizu / Fred. Olsen Windcarrier

Blue Wind will start preparing for the Yunlin project in December 2023 and, once it arrives in Taiwan, is estimated to be deployed on the 640 MW offshore wind farm for 200 days.

Shimizu Corporation took delivery of the new jack-up vessel from the Japan Marine United (JMU) shipyard at the end of January. The vessel then sailed off to work on its first project, the 9 MW Nyuzen offshore wind farm in Japan, before moving on to the 112 MW Ishikari Bay offshore wind farm.

Fred. Olsen Windcarrier and Shimizu Corporation signed a partnership and exclusivity agreement back in 2021, under which the two companies are supporting each other in the offshore wind market both in Japan and worldwide.

Per the agreement, Fred. Olsen Windcarrier is the leading partner for installation projects involving Shimizu’s Blue Wind vessel outside Japan, whereas Shimizu is the leading partner for installation projects within Japan.

The partnership also includes Fred. Olsen Windcarrier and related company Global Wind Service being the preferred suppliers for Shimizu with Fred. Olsen Windcarrier supplementing Shimizu vessel capacity in Japan when needed, while outside Japan, Fred. Olsen Windcarrier is representing and marketing the Shimizu vessel.

The news about Fred. Olsen Windcarrier and Shimizu’s contract for the Yunlin offshore wind farm comes shortly after the Yunneng Wind Power consortium announced that it had secured extended financing to complete the project, which has seen delays and setbacks since the start of offshore construction in December 2020.

With the financing in place, the project is now on track for completion according to an amended installation schedule, according to the 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).

The installation of monopiles was initially carried out by Sapura Energy Berhad, which issued a contract termination notice to Yunneng Wind Power consortium at the beginning of last year. The work was soon after taken over by the National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC), with Havfram contracted for Project Management and Owners Engineer Services within the foundation installation package.

The first Siemens Gamesa 8 MW wind turbine, out of the total of 80 that Yunlin will comprise, was installed in April 2021 and, 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.