South Korea will spend US$32 billion on world’s largest floating offshore wind farm
- It will produce enough power for 5.7 million households and account for half of South Korea’s planned offshore wind power production by 2030
- The wind farm will reduce 9.3 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year and produce 84,000 tons of clean hydrogen per year
A total of 36 trillion won (US$32 billion) from both the government and the private sector will be spent on the project to create a massive offshore wind farm complex off the country’s southeastern industrial hub of Ulsan City by 2030, President Moon Jae-in said.
The facilities will be built on the country’s first commercially viable offshore natural gas field that is expected to stop production and close in 2022 after 18 years of operation.
When completed, the wind farm will produce six gigawatts of power, enough for 5.7 million households and account for half of South Korea’s planned offshore wind power production in 2030.
The project will also create 210,000 new jobs, the presidential Blue House said.
“Sea winds are like carbonless petroleum in the 21st century. Large scale offshore wind farms will bring us a short cut to achieve carbon neutral and provide us with new growth engines,” Moon said in a speech in Ulsan.
The wind farm will reduce 9.3 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year and produce 84,000 tons of clean hydrogen per year, according to the Blue House.
Conventional offshore wind turbines are installed on the foundations built on the seabed but floating wind turbines are anchored by mooring lines so that they can be built in deeper waters, which mean higher and more consistent wind speeds and an efficient way to generate electricity.
At a climate summit last month, President Moon promised to further raise its carbon emission reduction target and present a new target to the UN this year.
Moon also said at the virtual summit that South Korea will stop official financing for foreign coal power projects, barring state-owned enterprises from taking part in the construction and operation of coal-fired power plants abroad.
In an updated report to the United Nations last December, the fourth-largest Asian economy presented its target of reducing emissions by 24.4 per cent from the 2017 level by 2030.
It is part of the country’s commitment under the Paris Agreement, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC). But this target must increase drastically if South Korea hopes to meet its share of climate obligations, activists say.
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South Korea relies on coal and nuclear energy for most of its energy needs, relying on renewables for only 6 per cent, according to the Korea Federation of Environment Movement (KFEM).
“Concerns also persist about how Seoul hopes to achieve its emissions reduction targets,” Sam Macdonald, international solidarity coordinator from KFEM, wrote for The Diplomat on Wednesday.
“South Korea continues to make bold climate statements on the world stage, but its domestic record fails to back these up,” he wrote in an article titled South Korea’s Climate Pledges: Less Than Meets the Eye.
“If Seoul is to release new NDCs this year they must not only be significantly higher, but they must tackle the real sources of emissions. Anything less would render Moon Jae-in’s recent pledges at the Biden summit entirely meaningless.”
