TPCII, the Taipower Changhua II Offshore Wind Farm (2025)
Martin Anderson, our Operations Director, talks about one of our current projects in Taiwan, TPCII.
Taiwan is making excellent strides with its offshore wind development and – with geothermal and hydropower projects also in their early stages – it is most definitely staking its claim as the leading light in clean energy production in the APAC region.
TPCII, the Taipower Changhua II Offshore Wind Farm, is currently in construction approximately 20km off the coast of Lungang Town, Changhua County, Taiwan. Shinfox Energy is the T&I (Transport & Installation) contractor, and Sika Taiwan was contracted to supply more than 8,000 MT of SikaGrout® -9800 and associated grouting services. As a long term partner of Sika, FoundOcean was subcontracted for the scope of the grouting services by Sika Taiwan.
When installed, the wind farm is expected to have a capacity of 295MW. Combined with the 109.2MW of Phase I, completed in 2021, the overall project has an expected production output of 1.35GWh. Phase II will generate around 1GWh of electricity per year which will power around 270,000 households and reduce Taiwan’s carbon dioxide emissions by over 400,000 metric tonnes a year.
Taiwan’s Energy Goals
TPCI and TPCII are two of eleven offshore wind projects approved by the Taiwanese government back in 2018. These two Taipower (TPC) projects will help Taiwan to reach their goal – set by their Ministry of Economic Affairs – of 20% total renewable energy in 2025. It is expected that wind power generation capacity will exceed 5.7GW by the end of 2025. Plans also include reducing coal-fired electricity generation and increasing the use of natural gas. In May this year, the last operating nuclear plant, Maanshan-2, was permanently shut down, fulfilling the government's promise to become nuclear-free.
FoundOcean has already worked on another offshore wind project in Taiwan, Greater Changhua 1 and 2a, grouting two offshore substations using SikaGrout® -9800, and 111 three-legged jacket foundations using high-strength cementitious grout in 2021.
Turbine Type
Phase II of the TPC project consists of 31 Vestas V174-9.5 MW turbines. These turbines have four-legged jacket foundations, unlike the three-legged jackets of Phase I. A substation with four-legged jacket foundations is also part of the build.
Trials and Sampling
We joined the TPCII project in the middle of 2024 and in October that year we ran a FAT/SAT test to demonstrate to the client and end customer, Shinfox Energy, that the nominated RJM (Recirculating Jet Mixer) equipment could achieve the required strength throughout the grouting process. It’s very common to do demonstrating and testing procedures such as these prior to mobilisation. Often testing can be carried out in the workshop at our headquarters in Livingston or, for this project in Taiwan, we performed the tests at our equipment base in Taichung. For this particular trial we took both cube and cylindrical samples as requested by Sika Taiwan and the end customer.
In all testing scenarios, we always use the mixer that will be deployed for the project to show that the equipment is fully operational. A chiller with water baths was set to 20°C to submerge the SikaGrout® -9800 cube samples after mixing. We take samples at the start, middle and end of the grouting process to ensure consistency of mixing and to demonstrate that we are pumping at the density and ratio required by the client and end customer. In total, for the testing, we took 39 nos. 75x75mm cube samples. All of the samples were then tested at Sika Taiwan’s laboratory with a third-party surveyor as witness and submitted to the end customer for approval.
Weather Windows
The western coast of Taiwan has some of the best wind farm potential in the world, with up to 30GW of wind energy development potential in the Taiwan Strait. However, these strong winds also impact the installation of offshore infrastructure. High winds and strong currents can mean lots of waiting on weather.
The TPC II weather window for a single jacket installation is approximately 3-4 days long, as this is the time it takes to install a jacket – from leaving the port to the curing of the grout. This includes time for the vessel and barge to depart from the harbour and get out to the field, landing of the jacket, grouting of the foundation and curing. However, the grouting operation only takes around 8-12 hours per jacket from starting to ceasing pumping.
How we do it
We are working from the SFE Hercules HLV (Heavy Lift Vessel) which is also completing the piling work. For this project we have deployed an RJM26 mixer for the scope which was newly developed in 2023.
The mixer has sensors on the surge tank to detect how full it is, indicated to the operator by lights on the control panel. 1 four-legged jacket means 2 grouting sessions, 1 for each 2 legs. Due to the environmental conditions, the equipment needs to be cleaned regularly. We established early on in the project that we would clean through after grouting two out of the four legs on each jacket to prevent build-up within the pipework.
Our committed team and continuous testing
There are a total of ten offshore FoundOcean staff working on this project supporting Sika Taiwan with the team – comprising a deck supervisor, mechanic, operator, lab tech and QAQC (Quality Assurance and Quality Control) tech – split into two 12hr shifts. The lab techs take the samples at the beginning, middle and end of each leg grouting to carry out the required continuous quality checks.
For each leg, we take 3 sets of 15 samples, so 45 cubes per leg and 180 overall per jacket. This continuous testing is important in every project and demonstrates our rigorous approach to quality. We also produce a grout report on each leg to record this information, as well as documenting how much grout was used and other significant details.
Frequently – and this is true of TPCII – all four leg grout volumes for a jacket are not identical to each other because of different dredging depths and varying seabed conditions. Therefore, each and every leg can require a different volume of grout material. However, due to such variations, we will always carry additional contingency material on the vessel to compensate for these variances.
Conclusion
The TPCII project is ongoing and our team in Taiwan are working hard to get the job done efficiently, safely and to the highest quality for Sika Taiwan.
We are proud to be part of this project in one of the best potential wind energy zones in the world, helping to confirm Taiwan’s position as a clean energy leader in the Asia-Pacific. It’s also been great to utilise our new yard in Taiwan and work closely with our APAC Regional Manager, Deryck Chen, who is based in Taipei.
Andy McGregor, Head of Offshore Construction – Sika (APAC), says, “We are extremely happy with FoundOcean’s contribution to this important project. They have been our trusted partner for many years now, due to the quality of their work, their reliability, the expertise of their personnel, a positive ‘can-do’ approach, professional execution of all tasks and their evident commitment to both safety and efficiency.”
For more information on FoundOcean’s global experience and capabilities, contact the team on +44 1506 440330 or email info@foundocean.com
Image credit: Shinfox Far East Energy