Ørsted proposes to build world’s largest offshore wind farm in Vietnam

Ørsted is proposing to build a large-scale offshore wind project in Vietnam which would have an installed capacity well beyond the offshore wind farms currently under construction or in development and would require an investment of over €10 billion. The developer has introduced its plan to a local government as the company is looking to conduct studies and site investigations in the waters off the country’s northeastern coast, where it intends to install next-generation offshore wind turbines, each of which would have an output much higher than the turbines that are on the market at this time.

The Denmark-based offshore wind developer presented the project to the Hai Phong City’s government on 2 November, during a meeting organised by the city and the Embassy of Denmark.

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In the waters offshore Hai Phong, Ørsted is planning to build a 3,900 MW offshore wind farm in three phases of 1,300 MW.

Each phase would feature offshore wind turbines of a nominal capacity of around 20 MW and see an investment of between $3.95 billion and $4.5 billion (approximately €3.4 billion and €3.9 billion). The total investment in the project is expected to be between $11.85 billion and $13.6 billion (approx. €10.2 billion and €11.7 billion).

Ørsted plans for the first 1.3 GW phase to be operational in 2029. The second phase would be up and running in 2035 and the third would follow suit two years later.

The 3.9 GW development is estimated to produce around 13,665,600 MWh annually.

The project site, spanning some 870 square kilometres, is located around 14 kilometres from Bach Long Vi Island and some 36 kilometres from the Long Chau archipelagos.

Vice Chairman of the City People’s Committee, Nguyen Duc Tho, said the project was in line with the ambitions of Vietnam’s National Energy Development Strategy, which prioritises the use of renewable energy sources.

The Vice Chairman requested that Ørsted submits further documentation and supplements that address issues raised by the City’s departments at the meeting, including a review and clarification of the contents related to the survey location and the array layout of the wind turbines in order to ensure compliance with current regulations and to prove there was no impact on navigational channels, security and defense issues.

The company introduced its plan to the local government shortly after entering into a strategic collaboration with Vietnam’s T&T Group last month, when the partners said they would bring together a multi-gigawatt pipeline of greenfield offshore wind projects located off the coasts of the Binh Thuan and Ninh Thuan provinces, both of which are in the southern part of Vietnam.

Currently, the largest proposed project in Vietnam is the 3.5 GW La Gan offshore wind farm, being developed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), Asiapetro, and Novasia Energy.

Worldwide, the largest operational offshore wind farm is the 1.2 GW Hornsea One in the UK, which will soon be overshadowed by the 1.4 GW Hornsea Two – both being built by Ørsted. These, together with the 1.4 GW Sofia offshore wind farm, will hold their records for a short time, until the 3.6 GW Dogger Bank project, now under construction, gets its third phase up and running.

Several multi-gigawatt offshore wind projects have been proposed worldwide, however, these mostly include larger developments incorporating different technologies and including more than one project, such as South Korea’s plans for the waters offshore Ulsan.

With 3.9 GW of installed capacity, Ørsted’s Hai Phong project is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, fixed-bottom offshore wind farms currently being proposed to be built.