TAIPEI (Reuters) – Denmark’s Orsted, the world’s biggest offshore wind farm developer, said on Wednesday a project in Taiwan that will provide power for chipmaker TSMC is progressing well and is on track for completion next year.
Orsted said in March of last year it had made a final investment decision to go ahead with its planned 920 megawatt (MW) Greater Changhua 2b and 4 offshore wind farms, which will mostly supply Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
Orsted has not said how much it is investing in the project.
“We are progressing very well on all fronts. A lot of manufacturing is on-going – some of it is completed even before schedule,” Orsted’s Asia Pacific President Per Mejnert Kristensen told reporters in Taipei.
“Very soon a lot of hardware will start coming into the country and that also means we will have full installation next year and are committed to completing the project by the end of next year,” he added.
“We are very pleased with the progress we are making on that project.”
TSMC, a top supplier to companies such as Apple and Nvidia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the project. TSMC is so important to Taiwan’s economy that it is often referred to as a “sacred mountain protecting the country”, and is also an intensive energy user.
Under the terms of the deal Orsted and TSMC reached in 2020, TSMC will buy power from the new wind farms for 20 years.
TSMC said in 2021 that it aimed to reach net zero emissions by 2050, matching government plans.
Taiwan has made renewable energy, especially from wind, a major priority as it tries to wean itself off imports which now power most of its energy, such as coal, although it is also shifting to greater use of liquefied natural gas.
Taiwan is also racing to bolster its power grid which has faced large-scale outages in recent years, unnerving the industry.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
