TotalEnergies and Corio to Develop Offshore Wind in Taiwan

TotalEnergies and Corio Generation, two of the world’s leading offshore wind and renewable energy developers, have signed a joint venture partnership to develop the Formosa 3 offshore windfarms in Taiwan. Under this agreement, Corio will remain the majority shareholder and lead developer with 50% plus 10 shares overall in project.

The announcement comes after Taiwan’s Bureau of Energy confirmed in late December 2022 that Formosa 3’s Haiding 2 windfarm had been successfully awarded 600 MW grid capacity following the first phase of Taiwan’s Round 3 auctions.

The Formosa 3 project comprises three proposed windfarms – Haiding 1, 2 and 3 – in Changhua County on the central-western coast of Taiwan. The project received Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) approvals in 2018, with an EIA-approved capacity of around 2 GW.

The windfarm development is expected to contribute to Taiwan’s ambitious plans for the green energy transition and represents a multi-billion investment from the partners and project lenders up to the end of construction. Future investments will be made in proportion to the partners’ project shareholdings.

“We are very pleased to team up again with our strategic partner Corio, this time to develop offshore wind in Taiwan. This marks a new step toward supporting Taiwan’s energy transition, bringing sustainable, low-cost energy to the country. It also demonstrates our dedication to build up our global multi-energy business model through a series of investments to grow our worldwide renewable portfolio from 17 GW in 2022 to 35 GW in 2025, in line with our ambition to be one of the top 5 renewables developers by 2030,” said Vincent Stoquart, Senior Vice-President Renewables at TotalEnergies.

“We are thrilled to welcome TotalEnergies as our partner in building offshore windfarms in Taiwan. Our two companies have a longstanding relationship and strong track record in developing projects across Europe and Asia-Pacific and so we are absolutely delighted to be working together again in Taiwan,” said Jonathan Cole, CEO of Corio Generation. “Corio has one of the largest offshore wind project portfolios worldwide with more than 20 GW in development. As a transformative source of clean and reliable energy, we believe offshore wind offers huge benefits to Taiwan’s communities and economy. The Formosa 3 windfarms will support job creation and provide many opportunities for local businesses to participate in the green energy transition.”

The partnership announced in Taiwan is the latest example of TotalEnergies and Corio, combining their leading industrial, technical, and financial expertise to pursue offshore wind opportunities across the world.

Other projects developed by TotalEnergies and Corio include:

• The 2 GW West of Orkney Windfarm project in Scotland, UK;
• The 1.5 GW Outer Dowsing Offshore Wind project in England, UK;
• Over 2 GW of floating wind projects in South Korea;
• The 250 MW floating windfarm tender in France’s South Brittany region;
• The 500 MW floating windfarm tender in France’s Mediterranean region;
• This agreement is subject to the receipt of applicable regulatory approvals from relevant authorities.

TotalEnergies and renewable electricity

As part of its ambition to get to net zero by 2050, TotalEnergies is building a portfolio of activities in electricity and renewables. At the end 2022, TotalEnergies’ gross renewable electricity generation installed capacity is 17 GW. TotalEnergies will continue to expand this business to reach 35 GW of gross production capacity from renewable sources and storage by 2025, and then 100 GW by 2030 with the objective of being among the world’s top 5 producers of electricity from wind and solar energy.