The Hai Long offshore wind farm is a 1,044MW offshore wind farm project proposed to be developed approximately 50km off the coast of Changhua County in Taiwan.

The offshore wind farm will be owned and developed by a consortium of Canadian independent power producer Northland Power (60%) and Taiwanese offshore energy developer Yushan Energy (40%). Japan’s Mitsui holds a 50% stake in Yushan Energy.

The Hai Long offshore wind project will be developed in three stages with each stage involving a separate grid allocation. The three development phases of the wind farm include Hai Long 2A (300MW), Hai Long 2B (232MW) and Hai Long 3 (512MW).

The Hai Long 2 and Hai Long 3 projects received all required environmental permits in 2018. Construction works on Hai Long 2A are expected to be started in 2023 with grid connection expected by 2025.

The Hai Long offshore wind farm is intended to help the government of Taiwan to meet its energy policy goal of achieving 5.5GW of installed offshore wind capacity by 2025.

Project location and development background

The Hai Long offshore wind farm will be located in zones 18 and 19 in the Taiwan Strait, which is considered to be one of the world’s top-twenty water bodies for the development of offshore wind resources.

The government of Taiwan implemented a feed-in-tariff programme to kick-start its offshore wind sector in 2015.

The Taiwan Bureau of Energy allocated 300MW to Hai Long 2 project under Taiwan’s feed-in-tariff programme in April 2018. An additional capacity of 232MW to Hai Long 2 and another 512MW to Hai Long 3 was awarded in June 2018, increasing the total output of the project to 1,044MW.

The site investigation for the project will be carried out in two phases. Fugro’s SEACALF continuous drive system will be deployed during the seabed survey phase and the geotechnical drilling vessel Fugro Voyager will be deployed for the downhole phase.

Hai Long offshore wind farm make-up

The Hai Long 2A segment of the project will employ Siemens Gamesa’s new SG 14-222 DD 14MW giant offshore wind turbines. The installation will also mark the first-ever use of the SG 14-222 DD wind turbine in Asia Pacific region.

The same turbine model is also under consideration for use in the Hai Long 2B and Hai Long 3 projects.

The nacelle for the Hai Long wind power project will be manufactured at Siemens Gamesa’s nacelle production facility in Taichung beginning 2024.

The SG 14-222 DD offshore wind turbine comes with three 108m-long B108 fiberglass-reinforced epoxy blades and a rotor with a diameter of 222m. The rotor blades have a swept area of approximately 39,000m².

The turbine is based on the direct drive technology for increased operational effectiveness and easy maintenance, while the use of a permanent magnet generator increases its efficiency by minimising excitation losses.

Power purchase agreement (PPA)

Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for the 300MW Hai Long 2A offshore wind project in February 2019.

Under the terms of the PPA, Taipower will off-take the power output of Hai Long 2A at a rate of £0.16 (NTD6.2795) per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years of operation and £0.11 (NTD4.1422) per kilowatt-hour for the remaining 10-year operational life of the project.

Contractors involved

CSBC DEME Wind Engineering (CDWE), a joint venture of Taiwan-based CSBC Corporation and Belgium-based DEME Offshore, was awarded the balance of plant (BOP) preferred supplier for the Hai Long wind power project in October 2019.

Under the agreement CDWE will carry out the engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) of the foundations, inter array cables, export cables and transportation and installation of the turbines.

Siemens Gamesa will supply the turbine technology for the project, while Fugro IOVTEC was engaged for the offshore geotechnical site investigation in May 2020.

The advisory firm Green Giraffe was responsible for preparing the financial model in addition to supporting project management and bid coordination.

Irish offshore engineering company Gavin and Doherty Geosolutions (GDG) was awarded a contract to provide geotechnical and geophysical owners engineering services in March 2020.