DWTEK Co. Ltd., a Taiwanese underwater tech developer, last month made a major achievement in supporting the local offshore wind farm maintenance by sending the ‘Made-In-Taiwan’ working-class ROV Monew to the west side of Taiwan Strait, for an inspection with partner R2 Sonic and Tritech.
DWTEK proved its capacity to support and now plays an important role in Taiwan's offshore wind farm supply chain.
The DWTEK Working-Class ROV Monew’s debut made it the first ‘Made-in-Taiwan’ ROV to support Taiwan’s offshore wind industry. The overall scanning and inspection was accomplished with the equipment installed in Monew: special R2 Sonic Sonar 2024 multibeam echosounder, navigation sonar, a USBL underwater positioning, and DWTEK self-developed high-resolution cameras and 11 K25 thrusters. The non-stop mission lasted around one week with a 6 person team without the ROV being docked to refuel, or return to port for resupply, which was a big breakthrough for Taiwan's offshore sector, and saved valuble time.
Image credit: DWTEK
Taiwan imported 98% of its energy from foreign countries for many years, but that is now changing.
In 2019 Bureau of Energy released the Policy of Offshore Wind in Taiwan. The policy identified the opportunities for offshore wind energy, and the renewable plan to solve the energy shortage problem on the island. More than 200 wind turbines on the Taiwan Strait have been installed, thanks to international developers and investors, The question now is, will local companies be able to fulfill the huge maintenance operations that comes with the installation of these offshore windfarms?
