All Monopiles Up at Yunlin Offshore Wind Farm, Over Half of Wind Turbines Connected to Taiwanese Grid

July 11, 2024, by Adnan Memija

All 80 monopiles have been placed at the Yunlin offshore wind farm site in Taiwan. Additionally, 55 wind turbines have been installed by the installation teams, with more than half of the units already connected to the grid.

The monopile installation was initially performed by Sapura Energy Berhad, which installed the initial 15 monopiles in 2020 and 2021. In February 2022, Sapura Energy issued a contract termination notice to the Yunneng Wind Power consortium, citing unresolved technical and operational issues.

Following Sapura’s departure from the project, the Abu Dhabi-based National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) took over the monopile installation work. Around the same time, Yunneng contracted Havfram to provide Project Management and Owners Engineer Services for the foundation installation package of the Yunlin wind farm. Havfram was engaged as Owners Engineer in 2022.

Since 2022, NMDC Energy, formerly known as NPCC, was responsible for the monopile installation.

Fred. Olsen Windcarrier (FOWIC) and Shimizu were collaborating to handle the transportation and installation of monopile foundations in 2024.

*Source: Skyborn Renewables via LinkedIn*

The wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) Blue Wind, under a contract with FOWIC, is engaged as the installation vessel for both monopiles, in addition to the DLS-4200 of NMDC Energy, and wind turbines, in addition to Seajacks Zaratan.

The first monopile in the 2024 installation campaign was installed in March.

Last month, Jumbo Offshore completed the removal of the last two monopiles that were subject to pile runs during installation in an earlier construction phase at the Yunlin offshore wind farm. The first of the three affected monopiles was removed last year.

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So far, the project team has installed all 80 monopiles, along with 72 transition pieces, 55 out of 80 Siemens Gamesa 8 MW wind turbines, 42 inter-array cables, and all twelve export cables.

Skyborn Renewables announced on social media that over half (42) of the wind turbines are connected to the grid, giving the project an energised capacity of 336 MW and making it Taiwan’s fourth-largest completed offshore wind farm.

“The project team will continue to work closely with all partners to steadily advance the finalization of the OWF, which is on track to complete the installation of 80 WTGs by the end of 2024,” said Skyborn Renewables.

Once completed, the 640 MW Yunlin wind farm is expected to power over 600,000 Taiwanese households. Located in the Taiwan Strait, the project has already made a significant impact by feeding over 1.4 TWh of renewable energy into the grid, according to Skyborn Renewables.

The project company owning Yunneng Wind Power Co., Ltd. consists of Skyborn Renewables (which holds approximately 32 per cent), TotalEnergies Renewables (approx. 29.5 per cent), EGCO (approx. 26.5 per cent), and Sojitz (approx. 12 per cent).