Taiwan has announced plans to boost its offshore wind power generation capacity by 15 GW over 10 years between 2026 and 2035.
The new target represents an increase of 5 GW as compared with an earlier plan of 10 GW increase during this period.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MEA) said that 1.5 GW of offshore wind capacity would be added each year from 2026 until 2035, instead of the previously planned 1 GW.
Of the total, 9 GW of offshore wind will be added before 2031 and the remainder will be put online from 2032 to 2035.
The MEA said that it has already tabled the draft regulation for Taiwan’s third round of offshore wind auctions for discussion.
The ministry will qualify the bidders by reviewing their track records, and awards will be made to those with competitive price and commitments to grid hook-up schedules.
Other qualification parameters include preliminary approval of the environmental impact assessment (conditional), and grid feasibility with Taipower - Taiwan’s power utility.
Each project will have a maximum capacity of 500 MW, plus an additional 100 MW of capacity depending on conditions such as wind farm integrity and grid-connection capacity.
For those projects which are scheduled for operation between 2026 and 2027 period, the bid will be launched in 2022 while, for those expected in operation between 2028 and 2029, the bid will be launched in 2023.
The bid will be held in 2024 for projects slated for operation between 2030 and 2031.
No bid timeline is being determined for those projects coming online between 2032 and 2035.
Taiwan already launched two rounds of offshore wind farm bidding in April and June 2018, through which the government awarded project developers with capacity of 5.5 GW, which are scheduled for operation by 2025.
