Taiwan's first offshore wind farm to boost capacity by 1,500%

Capacity is expected to hit 120MW by 2019.

Taiwan's Central News Agency reported that its first offshore wind farm off the coast of Miaoli County has generated 6.5MW as of late July since the launch of commercial operations in April, with capacity expected to grow to 120MW by 2019, according to local company Swancor Renewable, the lead developer for the project.

The wind farm project -- Formosa I -- is one of the three projects supervised by the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Bureau of Energy as part of its stated goal to install 1,000 wind turbines by 2030, in support of the Taiwanese government's plan to produce 4GW of electricity through offshore wind.

Two 4MW wind turbines with a capacity of 8MW were installed in November 2016 under the first phase and became operational in April 2017. The second phase involves the addition of another 30 turbines with a combined capacity of 120MW. Construction on phase two is expected to start in 2019 and begin commercial operation in the same year, according to Swancor Renewable.