Posted on March 16, 2021
Last year, South Korean President Moon Jae-in began initiating his administration’s Green New Deal. The plan is designed to advance the country toward carbon neutrality by 2050.
On February 5th of this year, he attended a ceremony in the southwestern coastal town of Sinan in which he signed contracts to have the world’s largest offshore wind farm built by 2030. The 48.5 trillion won ($43.2 billion) project will have an electricity generation capacity of 8.2 GW.
Among the other people to attend were representatives of several of the construction, utility, and engineering companies involved in the project, such as Hanwha Engineering & Construction Corp, Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), CS Wind Corp, SK E&S, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., and Samkang M&T Co. These and any other companies involved will provide around 98% of the financing, with the government providing the rest.
Once fully linked to the grid, the offshore wind farm will produce as much energy as six nuclear reactors. Its size will dwarf that of the UK’s Hornsea 1 installation – the world’s largest offshore wind farm today, boasting 1.12 GW of generation capacity.
This mammoth undertaking is part of the government’s effort to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.
Moon said:
With this project, we are accelerating the eco-friendly energy transition and moving more vigorously toward carbon neutrality.
The Blue House (South Korea’s version of the US White House) said the wind farm would provide as many as 5,600 jobs and help the country meet its target of 16.5 GW of wind power capacity by 2030. Currently, it’s at 1.67 GW.
As it stands, liquefied natural gas and coal imports play a major role in its energy mix. In 2020, 40% of its electricity came from coal-fired power plants, followed by gas-fired units providing around 26%.
Nuclear energy supplies around 25% and renewables account for most of the remainder. There are 24 nuclear power plants in the country, with most of them located at two complexes in its densely populated southeastern region – near Busan, Gyeongju, and Ulsan, which are home to several heavy manufacturing plants.
However, the country’s energy plans involve nuclear energy’s share falling below 12% by 2030 and renewables picking up to around one-third.
According to the Norway-based energy research group Rystad Energy, global offshore wind power capacity is set to increase by 37% this year. Although mostly from new installations in China.
