Aiming to Become an Offshore Wind Power Powerhouse
The South Korean government is promoting the construction of a 2.4 GW offshore wind farm in waters off North Jeolla Province as the first project in its plan to increase the nation’s offshore wind power generation to 12 GW by 2030 and become one of the world’s top five offshore wind power producers.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) announced on July 17 that it has signed an agreement with the parties involved in the project, including the governments of North Jeolla Province, Gochang County and Buan County, and Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), and Korea Wind Power.
The ministry plans to start the construction of a 400 MW plant and a 2 GW plant in 2022 and 2023, respectively. The project will cost 14 trillion won in total.
Although the central government and local governments signed a development agreement regarding the wind power project in 2011, little progress had been made until the construction of a test bed complex began in 2017 due to difficulties in securing residents’ agreement.
When the large-scale offshore wind power complex project is completed in 2028, it will have a production capacity of 2.46 GW, which is enough to supply electricity to 2.24 million households.
Meanwhile, global offshore wind power generation reached 29.1 GW in 2019, with Europe and China accounting for the lion’s share. Currently, Japan and Taiwan are also focusing on developing offshore wind power farms. Global offshore wind power generation is expected to increase six-fold to 177 GW by 2030.