South Korea plans to develop a “megawatt-class” floating wind system as it gears up for large-scale deployment off the nation’s coasts.

The project, led by state-owned Korea Midland Power, aims to spend five years developing a floating wind concept ahead of installation at a demonstration site.

South Korea has already been earmarked as a potentially huge market for floating wind power. The better wind resources in deeper waters further off its shores, and lower conflicts with other maritime users, are among the factors in floating’s favour there, analysts said.

Korea Midland Power will be joined in the floating wind push by partners including Korea Energy Technology Research Institute and Korea Electric Association, as part of what the partners said is the South Korea government’s government's “new and renewable energy conversion policy to solve the shortage of offshore wind farms and the need to introduce large-scale floating offshore wind power into the deep sea”.

The project comes as South Korea’s offshore wind sector, fixed-bottom and floating, is tipped for lift-off in the second half of the decade after lagging behind regional neighbours such as China, Taiwan and Japan.

As with plans by Doosan Heavy Industries to develop an 8MW offshore wind turbine, the latest South Korean announcement shows that the nation is determined to have an industrial stake in large-scale wind development off its coasts – but has some serious catching up to do in terms of technology readiness.

Norway’s Equinor, a global pioneer of floating wind, earlier in July began measurement work for an up-to 800MW project called Firefly.

Equinor is among other global floating wind first-movers such as Ideol and Principle Power that are already well-advanced in deploying floating systems, either as single prototypes or full-scale arrays.

Offshore wind is among the sectors targeted for growth under plans for a ‘Green New Deal’ being advanced by the South Korean government, but some local commentators say growth plans for wind at sea are insufficiently detailed, with key issues over marine planning and grid infrastructure still not addressed.

Transition

South Korea starts push for home-grown floating wind technology