Utilizing the World’s Best Offshore Wind Resources in Taiwan

With a wealth of offshore wind resources available in the region, the Taiwanese renewable energy market has huge growth potential.

Its floating wind energy industry is evolving at speed, and the country is starting to take major steps in developing its regulatory practices and frameworks to aid the market’s strong development. To date, several notable offshore wind demonstration projects have been vital in shaping the market structure for future large-scale floating projects.

With a planned capacity of 1GW, BlueFloat Energy brought K2 Management on board as Owner’s Engineer for its first offshore wind project in Taiwan that year. Recognising K2 Management’s deep expertise in the APAC region and experience with large, complex offshore sites, BlueFloat selected the consultancy to aid in the development of the project ahead of what was a round three market auction.

Named “Winds of September” after the strong winds that blow in the Hsinchu region every September, the project marked BlueFloat Energy’s first offshore wind project in Taiwan, situated 25km off the coast of Hsinchu Country and Hsinchu City.

With K2 Management’s established presence in the Taiwanese market following its work on the Formosa 1 project - Taiwan’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm - BlueFloat on boarded K2 Management to support site selection screening, including work on pre-feasibility wind turbine layout, energy yield analysis, and export cable routing. This work was followed by K2 Management developing the project’s concept designs, supporting the procurement stage, and preparing BlueFloat’s auction proposals, including localisation plans.

"To ensure the country’s huge ambitions for offshore wind are met, the success of early, pioneering, floating projects such as Winds of September are key to paving the way for larger projects of greater capacity to be developed down the line.” - Scott Hsu, Country Director, Taiwan & Philippines, K2 Management.

In late 2023, K2 Management then supported BlueFloat Energy with its entry into the country’s third round of offshore wind tenders, seeing the country add another 3GW of offshore wind capacity to its existing provisions. As of today, the relationship continues to progress as the project enters its development stage.