Japanese trio Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), Toho Gas and Hokuriku Electric Power Company have agreed to acquire a 25% stake in Formosa I International Investment Company from Macquarie’s Green Investment Group in order to participate in Taiwan’s offshore wind sector.

The deal will mark the first investment in offshore wind outside of Japan by the three companies.

Formosa 1 International Investment Company through its wholly-owned Formosa 1 Wind Power Company operates the 128MW Formosa 1 offshore wind farm off the coast of Miaoli County.
Formosa 1 was the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in Taiwan, and has been contracted to generate and sell electricity to Taiwan Power Company for 20-years through a feed-in-tariff scheme.
It was built in two phases – 8MW coming online in April 2017 and 120MW in December 2019.

The acquisition is planned to be carried out through a special purpose company (SPC) jointly established by the three Japanese companies in Taiwan, in which MOL, Toho and Hokuriku will own 37.5%, 37.5% and 25.0% of the shares respectively.

The trio are in the process of filing for incorporation of the SPC, and the transaction is expected to complete after all the necessary procedures including approvals from the Taiwanese authorities.