OWA Daily News | South Korea takes new action to deal with "cheap wind turbines from China"

South Korean industrial giant Doosan Energy (formerly known as Doosan Heavy Industries), together with South Korea's four major power groups and local engineering companies, plans to cooperate in the development of a 10MW offshore wind turbine, to create a comprehensive coverage of the domestic supply chain from component manufacturing to the integration of the whole machine, to support the development of offshore wind power in South Korea, and to cope with "aggressive" foreign competitors.

South Korea is accelerating to become a focus market in the global offshore wind sector, aiming to reach a capacity target of 14.3 GW within a decade, and will soon launch a number of tenders totaling up to 8 GW in the next two years. In response to overseas competition, especially from "low-price fans in China", South Korea has recently introduced new bidding rules to strengthen the role of non-price standards in bidding.

Doosan Energy, in collaboration with Korea Offshore Wind Power, Korea East West Electric Power, Korea Southern Electric Power and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, plans to conduct offshore testing of 10MW turbines in 2027 and will increase the localization rate of components to 70 percent next year. To this end, Doosan will spend 50 billion won (about 265 million yuan) for the expansion of production facilities and in-depth research and development, focusing on building wind turbines suitable for South Korea's low wind speed sea conditions. With a rotor diameter of 205 meters (blade length of 100 meters), the new model ensures a power generation efficiency of more than 30 percent, even at an average wind speed of only 6.5 meters per second.

Sohn Seung-woo, head of Doosan Energy's Power Services division, said: "This project will enhance the competitiveness of Korean ultra-large offshore wind turbines in the global market, both in terms of quality, cost and speed of delivery. At the same time, this is an important opportunity for us to promote Korea's energy self-sufficiency security and activate the domestic wind power industry chain."

Doosan Energy currently has 3MW, 5.5MW and 8MW wind turbines.