Skyborn secures new funds for delayed offshore wind farm in Taiwan Strait
Skyborn secures new funds for delayed offshore wind farm in Taiwan Strait | Windpower Monthly
The 640MW Yunlin project is located 10km off Yunlin in the Taiwan Strait and being developed by Skyborn Renewables, French oil major TotalEnergies, Thai electricity firm EGCO and Japanese multinational Sojitz on the project.
Construction and installation of the 80 Siemens Gamesa SG 8.0-167DD turbines has started but is incomplete. In a statement published today (30 August), Skyborn said it has now secured an extended funding agreement to complete construction.
A combination of factors resulted in the need for additional funding, a spokesperson for Skyborn told Windpower Monthly:
“The Yunlin project was initially impacted by various external issues related to Covid and the supply chain, including resource availability. Site-specific issues provided further impacts to the installation schedule.”
German developer Wpd originally completed financial close in 2019 and was awarded grid capacity for the 80-turbine project in 2018. The company subsequently sold stakes in the project and retained a 25% share.
US investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners bought Wpd's offshore wind business and launched Skyborn last year.
Taiwan is targeting 13GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 and currently has 1.4GW installed according to Windpower Intelligence, the data and research division of Windpower Monthly.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.