We receive Environmental Impact Assessment approvals for four offshore wind projects in Taiwan

Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration has concluded the review process and approved the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of our four offshore wind projects located off Changhua County in Taiwan.

With the EIA approvals, we have secured exclusivity over the development of these four sites. The total capacity of the four wind farms, which will be located between 35 and 60 km from shore, is expected to be 2.4 GW.

”Today’s approvals mark an important milestone for our expansion in Asia and the realization of Taiwan’s ambitious energy targets”, said Martin Neubert, our CEO of Wind Power.

Subject to our final investment decision, construction of the first of the four projects could potentially start as early as 2019. Once commissioned, the four Greater Changhua offshore wind farms would expectedly generate green electricity to power in total around 2.8 million Taiwanese households and over their life time create thousands of jobs in the Changhua region and Taiwan.

Matthias Bausenwein, our General Manager for Asia Pacific expresses his gratitude towards all the involved parties, after intense analysis and review work: “The EIA approvals by Environmental Protection Administration are a crucial step towards securing Taiwan’s energy future with stable and clean power stemming from the strong winds in the Strait. We have now obtained exclusivity and certainty to further develop large scale offshore wind farms off Changhua county.”

The next step for the four Greater Changhua projects is to secure the corresponding grid capacity in 2018 and obtain the establishment permit latest end of 2019. Shortly thereafter, we aims to secure the feed-in-tariff by signing the power purchase agreement.

We are the global market leader in offshore wind and has installed more than 1,000 offshore wind turbines worldwide. We bring vast experience in building offshore wind and was one of the first international companies to become active in developing offshore wind in Taiwan.