The South Korean government has awarded nearly 700MW worth of capacity across four fixed-bottom projects in the country’s latest auction results released this week.
While the winners are not yet disclosed, the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a release that all four selected projects were from the carve out for public-led consortiums.
The MOTIE said that no projects were selected from the 750MW allocation for private-led bidding.
The four bidders in the public-led carve out were: Korea Offshore Wind Power’s 400MW Southwest 2, the Jeju Energy-led 105MW Handong-Pyeongdae, the 96MW Dadaepo, and Woori Green Energy’s 80MW Aphae.
The two private-led bidders, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ 504MW Haesong 3 and the 340MW Hanbit project partly owned by Thai conglomerate B.Grimm, were left on the outside looking in.
Aegir Insight’s APAC lead analyst Simon Engfred Schlichting told reNEWS that the results demonstrate the South Korean government’s commitment to local developers.
He said: “While not a complete shocker, the outcome is still a bit of a surprise – and it clearly indicates that the South Korean government seems to prioritize public ownership and localization with readiness to pay a premium by selecting the public-led projects.”
He added that both CIP and Hanbit will likely bid again in the next round, which is fully dedicated to privately-owned projects.
“It will be very interesting to see the market’s reaction and whether localization and security criteria will become an increasing topic in the next rounds,” Schlichting said.