Total and Macquarie’s Green Investment Group (GIG) have established a partnership to develop 2300MW of floating offshore wind off the coast of South Korea.
The partners will co-develop an initial portfolio of five projects, totalling 2.3GW of capacity, which will support the delivery of the South Korean government’s New Deal plan and target to deliver 12GW of offshore wind by 2030.
Three projects totalling 1.5GW are off the coast of Ulsan and two off the coast of South Jeolla province with combined capacity of 800MW.
The partners aim to start co-development activities in the autumn of 2020, subject to the completion of regulatory approvals and satisfaction of other conditions precedent.
The first 500MW phase of the Ulsan project is targeting a construction start date before the end of 2023.
GIG has already commenced a comprehensive wind data collection campaign to support the portfolio.
To date, GIG has supported 16 offshore wind projects representing almost 5.5GW of capacity in construction and operations and has a global development pipeline of over 25GW, including 4.5GW of offshore wind development capacity across Asia.
The Ulsan projects are the first floating offshore wind projects in GIG’s global pipeline.
Total has 5GW of operational renewable energy capacity worldwide and is targeting the acquisition of 25GW of renewable generation capacity by 2025.
To reduce the country’s heavy reliance on nuclear and coal imports, the government’s RE3020 plan promotes an “aggressive increase” in its green energy capacity, with a particular focus on offshore wind and associated job creation.
The partnership will also focus on maximising South Korean content within the supply chain, in line with the government’s New Deal plan, which is aiming to create 1.9 million new jobs through green energy and other new technologies.
GIG has signed an MoU with Ulsan City and 18 organisations, including local manufacturers HESI and Unison, Korea East-West Power, KEPCO-ENC, and several universities including Ulsan University.
The MoU commits the parties to cooperation on activities that will promote floating offshore wind in Ulsan, develop local technologies and create new jobs.
GIG global head Mark Dooley said: “Thanks in large part to the country’s world-class shipbuilding and marine plant infrastructure, GIG and Total see significant opportunities for floating offshore wind in Korea.
“We are committed to working with Korean companies and the local workforce as much as possible in order to support the Korean government’s Green New Deal plan, revitalise the economy and support jobs through Korea’s green transition.”