Corio Generation, a Green Investment Group portfolio company, and TotalEnergies are joining forces with SK ecoplant to develop the BadaEnergy offshore wind portfolio in South Korea. SK ecoplant will acquire a stake in the portfolio, subject to the completion of government approvals.
The BadaEnergy portfolio comprises more than 2 GW of floating and fixed-bottom offshore wind farms off the coast of Ulsan and South Jeolla province. This includes the 1.5 GW Gray Whale project, expected to become one of the world’s largest floating offshore wind developments.
Leveraging its offshore engineering, procurement and construction expertise, SK ecoplant will join the partners in taking the projects from early planning through licensing and construction to operation.
“SK ecoplant’s broad experience and excellent capabilities in offshore development will serve as a great driving force for constructing offshore wind in South Korea, including one of the world’s largest floating offshore wind developments,” says Woojin Choi, representative director of Corio Generation Korea. “In order to support the country’s ambition to lead the way in offshore wind, we will have a dedicated focus on the localization of capital, finance and technology.”
“We are delighted to welcome SK ecoplant, a well-known and leading South Korean company, to the BadaEnergy offshore wind power portfolio as a joint developer,” comments Jungwon Shin, country chair for Korea of TotalEnergies. “Its participation will help to accelerate the development of our projects and to build a strong relationship with the local economy, creating jobs, and building an ecosystem for the South Korean offshore wind power industry and its supply chain. We are very keen to expand our long-term cooperation with South Korea to contribute to the diversification of its energy mix.”
“By jointly developing the offshore wind business with global energy companies, we have laid the foundation to become a major player in the market,” states Kyung-il Park, CEO of SK ecoplant. “We have completed the overall value chain of the energy business by achieving rapid growth through intensive investments in the renewable energy sector such as offshore wind, solar and fuel cells.”
To-date, four of the five wind farm projects in the BadaEnergy portfolio have been granted electric business licenses (EBL) from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy’s Electricity Regulatory Commission. With exclusive development rights on the vast majority of the portfolio now secured, the partners are progressing the projects up to first commercial operation date (COD) by 2027.
