Macquarie Capital strengthens partnership with leading Japanese utility, JERA on its offshore wind projects in Taiwan

Macquarie Capital today announced that it is expanding its successful partnership with JERA Co., Inc (JERA), bringing additional capital to support the further growth of the Taiwanese offshore wind industry.

Macquarie Capital and JERA have already partnered successfully on the Formosa 1 project, a 128MW project 3km off the coast of Miaoli and Taiwan’s first commercial scale offshore wind farm. Today’s announcement sees JERA join the partners supporting the Formosa 2 project.

Formosa 2 is a 376MW offshore wind project located off the coast of Miaoli, and will utilise 47 market-leading 8GW turbines. After two years of development, Formosa 2 will now progress to the next phase of construction with the target of becoming operational in 2021. Once complete it will be Taiwan’s largest offshore wind project powering 380,000 households with green energy.

Daniel Wong, Global Co-Head of Macquarie Capital said, “The extension of our partnership with JERA is timely as Formosa 2 moves towards the construction phase, following two years of development. Formosa 2 is three times of the size of the Formosa 1 project and will become Taiwan’s largest offshore wind project, once operational. We are delighted to continue our successful partnership with JERA, one of Japan’s leading utility companies.”

“As one of the world’s leading investors in green energy, Macquarie Capital is committed to utilising our global experience to support Taiwan's renewable energy transition,” he added.

Satoshi Yajima, Executive Officer of Business Development Department of JERA said, “We are delighted to further strengthen our relationship with Macquarie Capital through JERA’s participation in Formosa 2, following investment in Formosa 1 offshore wind project last year. Moreover, in line with JERA’s vision of becoming a global leader in LNG and renewables toward 2025, we are honoured to be able to contribute to sustainable growth of Taiwanese power market not only from our existing participation in the gas fired IPP projects, but also from undertaking large-scale offshore wind development.”

Macquarie has been in Taiwan for 15 years and has a longstanding commitment to the renewable energy sector. Macquarie Capital takes on early stage development in offshore wind projects and into the construction phase, to create investment opportunities before introducing long term partners to its projects. Macquarie Capital has an expert team with extensive technical and commercial capabilities in Taiwan and is committed to overseeing the management and construction of its projects.

JERA is a joint venture between the Tokyo Electric Power Group and the Chubu Electric Power Group. JERA’s goal is to provide cutting edge solutions to the world’s energy issues and to become a global leader in LNG and renewables, sparking the transition to a clean energy economy.

As one of the earliest investors in Taiwan‘s offshore wind industry, Macquarie Capital has partnered with local offshore wind pioneer Swancor Renewable, to promote localization and bring best practice to the industry. Upon completion of the transaction announced today, which is subject to regulatory approval, Macquarie Capital and Swancor Renewable will together retain control of 51% of Formosa 2 and will continue to lead the project delivery through to operations. 

Along with Formosa 1, Formosa 2 places Taiwan at the forefront of the Asia offshore wind market and contributes to the Taiwanese Government’s target of adding 5.7GW of wind power to its energy mix by 2025.

Note*

Formosa 1 project is a joint venture of Ørsted, JERA, Macquarie Capital and Swancor. The total power generation capacity for Formosa 1 is 128MW, which can supply power to 128,000 households.