Samsung Heavy Industries (KRX: 010140) will use its latest 7-megawatt turbines to develop an 84 MW wind farm off South Korea’s Jeju Island by the end of 2014. It will be one of the nation’s first such facilities, and operations should begin in 2015.
The wind farm, featuring 14 turbines, will be managed by Daejeong Offshore Wind Power (DOWP)—a joint venture between Samsung Heavy and Korea Southern Power, a state-operated utility, in which Samsung Heavy holds a 60 percent stake.
DOWP hopes to increase the power capacity to 200 MW eventually, depending on how things go. Samsung, of course, is in hopes that the highly prominent project will lend it greater credibility in the worldwide wind market.
Currently, Samsung is pushing ahead with Scottish authorities to install a 7MW turbine off Scotland’s coast, and it also has plans to develop a manufacturing facility there.
A similar project in South Korea was originally proposed by Doosan, but the company has since dropped out of the offshore wind business.
South Korea’s government is gunning for a 2.5 GW offshore facility by 2019.
From the Korea Herald:
“The power farm on Jeju Island will be the nation’s first offshore wind power complex and its commercial operations will help the company build market leadership in the global wind power plant construction market,” the company said.
