Ørsted signs a pin-piles manufacturing contract with Formosa Heavy Industries

Formosa Heavy Industries is a subsidiary of Taiwan’s listed company, Formosa Plastic Group. Formosa Heavy Industries will supply a significant number of foundation pin-piles for the Greater Changhua South West and South East projects. The contract amount is approximately NT$2 billion.

Ørsted is moving at full speed in developing their Greater Changhua projects. 900MW will be built in 2021 using an Orsted designed Jacket-type underwater foundation. Each foundation will be supported by three pin-piles that are driven into the seabed, forming a robust foundation structure to sustain the weight of the tower and wind turbine system. These pin-piles are mainly composed of steel plates. Each of them will be approximately 90 meters long, 4 meters in diameter and will weigh over 400 tons. 

Matthias Bausenwein, General Manager for Ørsted Asia-Pacific, said: “Greater Changhua projects will be built on the basis that the wind farms will be in operation for the next 25 to 30 years. Pin-piles form a crucial part of the wind turbine foundation. We are therefore glad to partner with Formosa Heavy Industries, a company that is experienced in manufacturing and clearly demonstrates the professional skills required to deal with complicated steel structures.  Today’s contract is just a beginning of our partnership as Formosa Heavy Industries is one of the preferred suppliers for our future projects which will be built in 2025.”

For this contract, Formosa Heavy Industries intends to use the existing equipment of the Mai Liao Factory in Yunlin County. They also plan to invest in new hardware such as, a plate rolling machine, a milling machine, a sandblasting machine, a submerged arc welding machine and facility to deliver the pin-piles by March 2021. 

The local Mai Liao Harbour will be used for laydown and shipping of the pin-piles to their final location at Greater Changhua Offshore Wind Farm.  

As part of the Formosa Plastics Group, Formosa Heavy Industries was incorporated in 1991 in serving as the manufacturer for equipment required by petro-chemical plant, cogeneration plant, power plant, gearboxes, automated warehousing and rubber/coating works. Up to now, FHI have installed four sets of 660KW onshore wind turbines in the Mai Liao Industrial Park. With strong professional delivery and high performance of their engineering team, FHI is well positioned to manufacture the pin-piles and grasp bigger business opportunities in Taiwan’s developing offshore wind industry.

About Ørsted in Taiwan 

• Ørsted has obtained site exclusivity on four offshore wind sites located between 35 and 60km from the shore of Changhua County. The four sites, which have a total potential capacity of 2.4GW, received environmental impact assessment approvals in February 2018. Subject to Ørsted taking final investment decision, a total of approx. 1.8GW have now been earmarked for buildout in 2021 and 2025.
•  Ørsted is also the co-owner of Taiwan’s first commercial-scale offshore wind project, Formosa 1, which will be extended from its current 8MW capacity to 128MW in 2019.

As the world leader in offshore wind, Ørsted has installed more than 1,200 offshore wind turbines with a total capacity of approx. 5.1GW and has a further 3.8GW under construction. It is Ørsted’s ambition to have installed a total offshore wind capacity of 11-12GW worldwide by 2025.