Keppel O&M finishes construction of offshore substations for Taiwan

When operational, the Greater Changhua 1 & 2a will be Taiwan’s first far shore and large-scale offshore wind farms. Located 35-50 kilometers off the coast of Changhua County, the Wind Farms will supply around 1 million households in Taiwan with green power. Taiwan recently announced plans to install 15GW of new capacity in offshore wind for the ten-year period between 2026 and 2035.

The detailed engineering, procurement, and construction for the two unmanned offshore wind farm 600MW substations, which comprise the topside modules and jacket foundations, was completed with a perfect safety record.

The topside modules, which have a combined weight of more than 8000MT, are expected to sail away in late October 2021 to be integrated with the jacket foundations on site standing in the Taiwan Straits. Keppel O&M completed the construction of the jacket foundations earlier in Q2 2021 and will be undertaking the integration work for the offshore substations. When operational, the Greater Changhua 1 & 2a will be Taiwan’s first far shore and large-scale offshore wind farms.

Chris Ong, CEO of Keppel O&M, said, “We are pleased to support Ørsted’s first full-scale offshore wind project in Asia with two major offshore substations. Working in close collaboration with Ørsted, we were able to devise win-win solutions to work around the constraints caused by the pandemic to ensure the safe completion of the project. This is the seventh major project completed by Keppel O&M this year and is testament to our engineering expertise, execution excellence and how we have adapted our operations to manage the challenges posed by COVID-19.  

After integration of the topside modules onto the jacket foundations, Keppel O&M will conduct testing of the substation systems within its scope.