Eleventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Long-term operations and maintenance of offshore wind projects imply that supervening events may stop, damage or destroy those projects. The guaranteed profits and benefits may be suddenly gone. Force majeure clauses function as a precautionary mechanism against those unexpected risk. It excuses the non-performance of a party’s obligation in the contracts when extraordinary circumstances render the performance impossible. However, in contrast to the significance of force majeure, force majeure clauses do not draw contract drafters’ attention very much. The drafters may omit force majeure clauses intentionally or unintentionally, or just insert clause templates of force majeure into the contracts without being tailored, and cause serious disputes between parties later. Hence, this article argues that offshore wind developers and governments should collaborate as partners to carefully draft force majeure clauses in their offshore wind contracts to allocate future unexpected risks. By examining and analyzing the case of Taiwan, this article proposes fundamental elements and model clauses of force majeure in offshore wind contracts for the parties.