A Thousand Wind Turbines Off the Coast of Changhua, Fishermen Forced to Withdraw Entirely, Transition Imminent
Offshore wind power and fisheries have clashed repeatedly, with disputes arising frequently. Changhua, located at the midpoint of the west coast, is currently the county with the largest offshore wind farm area, and in the future its waters will be filled with over a thousand wind turbines. The dense array of turbines combined with shipping lanes will fragment the waters off Changhua, leaving virtually no intact sea area for fishermen to operate in. Coastal fishermen will be unable to continue fishing. Where will they go from here?
The severe challenges facing Changhua's fishermen may be a microcosm of Taiwan's western coastal and offshore fisheries. Compensation from wind power operators for fisheries is merely a one-time economic remedy, and fishermen's subsequent livelihoods remain unresolved. After years of protests and conflicts, the Changhua District Fishermen's Association proposed a "reconciliation and coexistence" plan in 2019, hoping that wind power developers would provide funding and that industry, government, and academia would establish a platform to promote "offshore ranching," converting capture fisheries into offshore aquaculture and seeking the possibility of coexistence between fisheries and wind turbines.
Chen Chu-tsan, Director-General of the Changhua District Fishermen's Association, admitted frankly, "This plan carries enormous pressure and enormous risk, but for the sustainability of Changhua's fisheries and the livelihoods of fishermen, we must give it a try. Otherwise, Changhua's fisheries will face a matter of survival or extinction." (To read the following, please click here)
The waters off Changhua packed with wind turbines, seven developers enter the battlefield
Domestic offshore wind power promotion adopts three phases: demonstration incentives, potential sites, and block development. According to the "Offshore Wind Power Planning Site Application Guidelines" announced in July 2015, among the 36 potential sites planned in the second phase, 21 are located off the coast of Changhua, with an initial planned sea area of 2,500 sq km, occupying more than half of the nation's potential site area.
Even in 2017, when the Maritime and Port Bureau of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications coordinated with the Bureau of Energy on the grounds of "navigational safety" to exclude potential sites No. 20 to 25 in the north-south shipping lanes, nearly 2,000 sq km of sea area off Changhua remained designated as wind farm sites.
Changhua County's land area is only 1,174 sq km, while the offshore wind farm area is nearly twice the size of Changhua, equivalent to 7 Taipei Cities and 100 times the size of Sun Moon Lake, the nation's largest natural lake. As a fiercely contested territory, the waters off Changhua are developed in two phases, spanning 7 developers, and their importance is self-evident.
If the north-south shipping lanes designated by the Maritime and Port Bureau, the cross-strait direct shipping lanes at both sides of Taichung Port, and the Formosa Plastics Sixth Naphtha Cracker shipping lane on the south side are also factored in (see attached map), the waters off Changhua have been almost entirely carved up by wind farms and shipping lanes. The fishing space left for fishermen is only a narrow strip of about 9 to 10 km along the coast.
