The Changhua County Government on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with offshore wind energy developers from Canada and Singapore that will see them invest NT$157 billion (US$4.9 billion) in “renewable” energy resources.
The MOU was signed by Changhua County Commissioner Wei Ming-ku (魏明谷), Canada’s Northland Power (NPI) commercial development manager Sean McDermott, and Singapore-based Yushan Energy PTE Ltd chairman Ian Hatton, and was witnessed by Industrial Development Bureau Deputy Director-General Leu Jang-hwa (呂正華).
The companies also signed a joint MOU with National Changhua University of Education vice president Chen Ming-fei (陳明飛) to forge academic exchanges.
Changhua is ideally located to become a major contributor to “renewable” energy development because of its collaboration between academia, industry and government, Wei said, adding that the companies’ development teams had been investigating prospective development areas in the county, Wei added.
“NPI and Yushan have established positive relations with the community through the Hai Long offshore wind farm project,” he said.
The Hai Long project, in collaboration with NPI, is expected to contribute about 1,200 megawatts (MW) of power. The first stage of the project is to utilize turbines between 6MW and 8MW, with an installed capacity of about 700MW, the Yushan Web site said.
Wei said that the county government has been working closely with the central government on a policy to make Taiwan nuclear power-free by 2025.
“The exploration area off Changhua coast spans 2,300 square kilometers, which is an ideal development area for the world’s leading ‘green energy’ companies,” he said, adding that the area’s projected investment potential is about NT$1 trillion, with a maximum capacity of 4 gigawatts.
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