Press Release

Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction announced on August 2nd that it had signed a business agreement on the “8MW Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Development” Phase 2 project, a national project being led by the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP), for which Doosan was selected as the main contractor. Doosan will be participating as a member of the project consortium it formed with the South Gyeongsang Province, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, Korea South-East Power Co., Jeju Energy Corporation, Gyeongnam Technopark, Institute for Advanced Engineering, Korea Research Institute of Ships & Ocean Engineering (KRISO), Samkang M&T, Korea Maritime Consultants Co. (KOMAC) and Seho Engineering.

For Phase 1 of the project which was implemented from May to August of last year, four consortiums that have an association with local autonomous entities were selected to tackle tasks, such as identifying candidate sites for the demonstration project, establishing design guidelines and reviewing the candidate wind turbines. For Phase 2, the participating consortiums from Phase 1 engaged in a competitive bid, from which Doosan’s consortium ultimately emerged as the winner. Over the next 51 months, the consortium will be handling tasks like the design, manufacturing and demonstration of the wind turbine and identification of target sites for commercial operation. This project is to be carried out as part of the renewable energy core technology development initiative that is being led by KETEP under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and will be receiving project financing amounting to KRW 27 billion over the 51 month-period.

Doosan Heavy will be applying the 8MW wind turbine model that is currently being developed as part of a national project. The demonstration project is to be carried out at KRISO’s wave energy and wind power test site in Jeju. Doosan Heavy, which first entered into the wind power business in 2005, has installed wind turbines with a total combined capacity of 239.5MW to date, among which 96MW is accounted for by offshore wind turbines.

“By participating in this project, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction has secured a foothold to further expand its offshore wind power business to also cover floating offshore wind turbines, in addition to the conventional fixed foundation-type wind turbines,” said Inwon Park, CEO of Doosan Heavy’s Plant EPC Business Group. He added, “We will do our utmost to secure a successful outcome for this floating offshore wind turbine development project, which we expect will open up new opportunities for us in Korea’s offshore wind power business.”

While it is costlier to build a floating offshore wind farm than building a conventional fixed foundation-type, floating offshore wind turbines boast of having a higher utilization rate and greater receptiveness among local residents as they are installed far out in the sea where abundant wind resources are available. Floating offshore wind turbines have been pursued as a viable future technology in the global market since 2009, particularly in the European countries and Japan, where demonstration projects and commercialization are actively being pursued. South Korea also released an offshore wind turbine development roadmap in July last year, thereby prompting the promotion of Korea’s floating offshore wind power market, which is forecast to grow to the size of 7GW in the future.

▲Aerial view of 8MW Floating Offshore Wind Turbine