Creating Industry of Cost-Effective Green Energy and Practical Development of Marine Engineering of Offshore Wind

　　The international trends of energy-saving and carbon reduction are unstoppable. In March this year, Taiwan officially announced "Taiwan's 2050 Net-Zero Emission Path and Strategies", offering the trails and action pathways to achieve net-zero emission by 2050. This will facilitate technologies, research, and innovations in crucial fields, leading to green transformations in industries and triggering a new wave of economic growth.

　　A unanimous consensus has been reached among the industries, authorities, and academics; that is, net-zero emission and sufficient green energy supply will be long-term layout strategies that can decide our future. At the same time, for Taiwan which heavily relies on export markets, 2050 net-zero emission and green energy supply will indeed be the decisive keys for the export industry. In other words, Taiwan's current renewable energy construction and green energy prices will directly affect the competitiveness of our products in the international market in the future. Clues can be seen from the recent tendency in which many big domestic corporations compete to sign green energy procurement contracts with renewable energy suppliers. In fact, this tendency will continue infiltrating all industries as well as every link of supply chains. Many companies haven't received their end purchasers' requests "yet"; however, based on all objective conditions, it is obvious that "continuously increasing" is the remaining possibility for green energy demand.

　　Being a bigger-scale project among the renewable energy options, offshore wind power will certainly attract green energy buyers and investors. Boasting outstanding locations of wind farms, Taiwan also grasps such advantages, to proactively promote the development of offshore wind power. However, as this issue has grabbed the attention of everyone, Taiwan's offshore wind construction has been bestowed with great responsibilities for driving domestic industrial development. Such responsibilities are so immense that the development of this green energy project has become the main goal. As a result, the focus on "stable and competitive supply of green energy" becomes blurred gradually. What's worse, various erroneous assessments and improperly-managed investments have emerged in succession. Previously, investors have crazily plunged into the part of foundations. On July 13th, the Control Yuan issued the investigation reports to correct the Industrial Development Bureau and Bureau of Energy, MEA. The report content mainly mentioned the issues of order cancellation by foreign companies due to delivery time and production capacity problems. Still, other localized development projects haven't been examined yet, so foundations are just the tip of the iceberg. In my opinion, the next concern about offshore wind power lies in construction vessels.

Construction teams that are too slow to meet the pressing needs

　　In the planning of the green power distribution ratio, offshore wind power is the source of the highest proportion in terms of green power. However, the fact that the construction site is in the offshore environment multiplies the complexity of such construction. Since a long time ago, Taiwan has focused on port and bay engineering in terms of marine engineering. The local marine companies and shipbuilding factories have sniffed business opportunities in the construction of offshore wind power, so they have also gotten involved. Under the trend of localization policies, the competent authorities have established adequate standards and priority rules for local manufacturers at different stages of development.

　　The industrial protection policies work only for "competitive industries". However, in view of the local marine engineering industry in shortage of funds, talents, and technologies, the marine engineering proprietors that really want to invest in local development are also in difficult positions. What's even worse, if foreign technologies, talents, and construction equipment cannot enter Taiwan, we are definitely sacrificing construction quality and international standards to shape an illusion of successful industrial localization.

Policies that ignore the international status

　　Since early 2021, several international media have constantly reported and analysed the marine worker shortage problem in the post-pandemic era. Taiwan, which has been in the pioneering status of Asia's offshore wind power development, is bewildered by the beautiful headlines released from the bidding of big capacities. After carefully reading subsequent regulations from the official announcements, we can find that the wind farm scale has been limited, while all the media have been overwhelmed by localization policies, but implementation details and methods are still ambiguous. After several meetings, the official statements seemed to be very confusing. Even after several meetings for clarification, the results are still unclear, and unable to relate the different sayings.

　　Taiwan's wind farms, which had an early start-up, would have been able to have a negotiation advantage in the international market. Based on the sufficient wind farm scale and early construction, Taiwan could have obtained turbines, infrastructures, and marine construction vessel schedules with competitive prices. of such regulations, and policies have not been restrained. On the opposite, the policies keep expanding, which has impacted Taiwan's leading position. In simple words, the big picture keeps changing because experts are under the leadership of inexperienced persons. Taiwan may achieve first-class wind farms with second-class systems, resulting in third-class industries.

　　A slipping-pile incident occurred early this year in the open sea area outside Yunlin. According to scholars and experts, the main reason is that the seabed conditions of Taiwan is particular. With natural challenges plus human restrictions, can Taiwan really safeguard its leading position in currently Asia's offshore wind power development?

Current problems and the last chance for amendment

　　Taiwan, which has the most excellent conditions for offshore wind farms in the world, can stand in the international market and attract foreign investments. The three-stage capacity regulations that have been widely publicized have won the attention from local and foreign companies. All of a sudden, discussions and media reports of various scales emerged. To seize this development opportunity, relevant units have been entrusted by local industries to set up related protection policies. However, there is no effective tracking management after the establishment of such regulations, and policies have not been restrained. On the opposite, the policies keep expanding, which has impacted Taiwan's leading position. In simple words, the big picture keeps changing because experts are under the leadership of the inexperienced persons. Taiwan may achieve first-class wind farms with second class systems, resulting in third-class industries.

A turning point for Asia's offshore wind power pioneer status?

　　After the pandemic peak period, the silver lining is just about to show up. This brings us to ponder whether Taiwan's offshore wind power development may reach a turning point in its pioneering status. In the past, wind-power-related stocks were constantly discussed in different financial forums, which meant that people did have expectations of this policy. However, will this trend merely be a short-lived phenomenon in the financial market? Are the relevant policies benefiting the people or stock-buyers?