Taiwan Move to Spark Offshore Wind Activities in Asia Pacific

The Taiwanese government’s award of grid connection capacity to a total of over 3.8GW of offshore wind projects on 30 April will have a positive impact on other offshore wind markets in Asia, according to a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells. 

“As sponsors can now start developing their projects in Taiwan, they will have a closer look at markets such as Japan and South Korea,” Asia Wind Energy Association quoted Hogan Lovells’ Joseph Kim as saying. “Lessons learned from developing in Taiwan will be valuable when going into those markets.”

Primarily, the latest announcement will set off a flurry of activities among developers, contractors, financiers and consultants in Taiwan, as the developers now have to work hard to get their projects commissioned on time.

Some of the applicants from this selection process are expected to apply for additional capacity at the upcoming round, according to Hogan Lovells partner Alex Wong. Namely, after the grid capacity allocation carried out within the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) system, some of the developers were awarded less than they applied for and one of the projects was not allocated any grid capacity at all.

The upcoming process will be auction-based and will add 2GW more to Taiwan’s offshore wind pipeline. It is anticipated that the competitive procedure will be held in May or June.