wiredinUSA August 2019

Taiwan cable deal

Tasmanian power plans

LS Cable and System has won a contract worth $100 million from Orsted. The Korean company said it had agreed with Orsted to supply submarine power cables to offshore wind farms in Changhua, a city in central Taiwan, and put them in place by 2022. Orsted is a Danish energy firm that was established in 1972, with the Danish government holding a 51 percent stake. The Taiwanese government plans to invest around $23 billion to increase the amount of renewable energy generated in the nation, from the current 5 percent of all energy generated there to 20 percent by 2025. Ten offshore wind farms with a combined total capacity of 5.5GW per year are being built in Taiwan. The Changhua wind farm is expected to produce 900MW per year. LS CEO Myung Roe-hyun said: “LS Cable and System has now secured global competitiveness since it first jumped into the submarine power grid business in 2009. We expect continued growth in the industry as offshore wind farms have been growing in Europe and Asia.” Officials at the signing ceremony for the $100 million contract

Chris Gwynne

As the nation moves from coal-fired plants to renewable energy, Tasmanian energy bosses are planning to link the island with the mainland through a series of power transmission cables. The federal government has already committed $56 million to progress a second interconnector cable across the Bass Strait. Chris Gwynne, who leads the Battery of the Nation project, suggests there could eventually be multiple Basslink-style cables. “We’ve done a lot of work, not just on the viability of another cable, to trigger this sort of investment,” he told the Hobart Mercury newspaper, adding that up to five cables could be installed over the next 25 years.

wiredInUSA - August 2019

34