Officials of the Port of Taichung (TIPC) in Taiwan have held a ground-breaking ceremony for the start of construction on Wharf Nos. 37 and 38 which will provide supporting infrastructure to the nation’s offshore wind industry.
When completed, the new infrastructure will provide a combined 580 meters in length and have live load capacity of 40mt per square meter.
TIPC Chairman Hsien-yi Lee noted that his company first initiated planning for critical heavy lift wharves at Port of Taichung in 2015 and, since 2019, has completed reinforcement work on several existing wharves, including nos. 2, 5A, 5B, 36, 106, and 107, all of which are now being used by firms engaged in wind turbine components manufacturing and assembly.
To help achieve key national offshore wind power directives, including linking wind farms with the national power grid before 2025 and maintaining wind farm installation progress, TIPC allocated NT$3.5 billion to build two completely new heavy lift wharves at Port of Taichung for wind turbine pre-assembly operations.
While work on three offshore wind farms (Formosa 1: 128MW; Taipower 1: 109.2MW; and Hailong: 376MW) have already been completed, work is continuing on Chong Feng (640MW), Greater Changhua (900MW), and CFXD (600MW).
According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, phase-three wind farm development work, to begin after 2026, will add three new 500MW capacity wind farms and 1.5GW of green energy to Taiwan’s national grid each year.
Based on the support infrastructure in place at that time (after completion of Wharf Nos. 37 and 38), the Port of Taichung will have three major pre-assembly sites, centered on Wharves 5A, 5B, 36, 37, and 38. Each can be used to independently support the specific needs of one offshore wind farm, allowing for the creation of wind-farm-specific industry clusters and streamlining the on and offsite transportation of turbine components and assemblies.
These sites will further benefit from the expeditious completion of the port’s development of 47 hectares of current windbreak forest which will give each pre-assembly site access to 30 hectares of land for components storage.