About 90 minutes by boat from Odo Pier in Yeonggwang County, Jeollanam-do (South Jeolla Province), into the West Sea on the 30th of last month, 61 massive wind turbines — each as tall as a 66-story building — emerged above the horizon. Once three more turbines are added by the end of the year, the site will form a 364.8-megawatt generation complex, larger than all offshore wind capacity installed in Korea to date. The Yeonggwang Nakwol offshore wind project, the country's largest private-sector offshore wind development, involves installing 64 turbines rated at 5.7 MW each at a total cost of 2.3 trillion won ($1.6 billion). Final-stage work is now under way, including the remaining turbine installations, subsea cable connections and test operations.
When Nakwol is completed, Korea's offshore wind capacity will double at a stroke. Excluding Nakwol, existing domestic offshore wind capacity stands at about 352 MW, smaller than the single Nakwol complex. With Nakwol in full operation, cumulative domestic offshore wind capacity will rise to about 716.8 MW. That is roughly equivalent to building a second copy, in one location, of all the offshore wind capacity installed across the country so far. Annual output is projected at about 900 gigawatt-hours, enough to supply roughly 250,000 households for a year. It is also enough to run a large-scale artificial intelligence data center — known as a voracious consumer of electricity — for more than a year.
The southwestern region in particular has heavy power demand, including from fabrication plants in the Honam area. The government's plan is to support rising power demand by drawing on the Nakwol offshore wind project, the Hanbit nuclear plant and additional regional renewable energy to be built in the future.
The fact that domestic companies secured supply and construction track records by actually building a large complex also carries significance. The turbines are 5.7 MW units from Vensys, but Korean companies took part extensively in the foundations, subsea cables and power equipment. GS Entec produced the monopiles that anchor the turbines to the seabed, while Samil C&S and others manufactured the transition pieces connecting the monopiles to the towers. Taihan Cable & Solution supplied subsea cables, and LS Electric and others took part in supplying power equipment.
The project gained momentum when Myungwoon Industrial Development, working with Thai energy company B.Grimm Power, obtained a power generation business license in January 2019. Construction began in March 2024, and the project is now 97.5% complete.
