South Korea's largest offshore wind project on track for completion this year at 83.6% progress

The Nagwol offshore wind project — the largest of its kind under construction in South Korea — is on course for completion by year's end. Total project costs stand at approximately 2.3 trillion won ($1.51 billion).

According to Nagwol Blue Heart and other project partners, the 364.8-megawatt Nagwol offshore wind complex being built in waters off Yeonggwang-gun, South Jeolla Province, had reached an overall construction progress rate of 83.6 percent as of Thursday. The project involves installing 64 turbines rated at 5.7 megawatts each at a site roughly 20 kilometers off Gyema Port in Yeonggwang-gun.

Onshore infrastructure — including a substation, switching station and transmission towers — has been completed and is already in operation. Offshore work, covering the substructures, superstructures and submarine cables, is ongoing. Of the 64 monopile foundations, 63 have been installed, with the final one scheduled for installation this week.

Twenty-seven of the 64 turbine nacelles have been installed, and 15 are already generating electricity after passing pre-operational safety inspections by the Korea Electrical Safety Corporation. To accelerate the topside installation schedule, the project deployed two installation vessels simultaneously — a first for an offshore wind project in South Korea. Each vessel takes an average of four days to install a single turbine unit.

Once fully completed, the Nagwol offshore wind project is expected to generate 900 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year — enough to supply roughly 250,000 households — while cutting carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 430,000 tons annually, contributing significantly to South Korea's renewable energy expansion and carbon neutrality goals.

A project official said the development had inevitably faced many challenges as a pioneer in the field. "We hope that investment from related companies will grow and that supply chains will be strengthened so that bottlenecks can be resolved," the official said.