In April 2018, Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs awarded Ørsted the right to install 900MW offshore wind from its Changhua 1 and 2a projects in 2021. In accordance with Taiwan Civil Code, the deadline for signing the 2018 power purchase agreement (PPA) was extended to 2 January 2019.
As Taiwan’s Bureau of Energy has not issued an establishment permit for the projects by close of business local time, it is no longer possible for Ørsted and the Taiwanese utility Taipower to sign a 2018 PPA for Changhua 1 and 2a. The 2019 feed-in-tariff has not been decided yet. However, in November 2018 the Taiwanese government proposed a 2019 feed-in-tariff of TWD5,106 (approx. EUR145) per MWh and suggested a production cap of 3,600 annual full-load hours.
Martin Neubert, CEO, Ørsted Offshore, says:
“We’re disappointed with the process and the delay of the establishment permit and PPA. We will now pause and revisit all our project activities, the timeline of the projects, and our supply chain commitments and contracts as we had assumed signing of the PPA in 2018. We’re very concerned about the suggested feed-in-tariff level for 2019 as well as the newly proposed cap on annual full-load hours. We will need to see significant changes to these proposals before we can progress any further towards a final investment decision on the projects.”