Wind power in South Korea

Wind power is a form of renewable energy in South Korea with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) and particulate matter (PM) emissions caused by coal based power.^[1] After two oil crises dating back to the 1970s, the South Korean government needed to transition to renewable energy, which encouraged their first renewable energy law in 1987.^[2]

As of 2015 wind power capacity in South Korea was 835 MW and the wind energy share of total electricity consumption was far below 0,1%. In 2019, South Korea led an initiative in creating energy transition policies, which incorporated wind power along with de-fossil and de-nuclear in the Renewable Energy 2030 Plan.^[1]

With wind power being the fastest growing power source in South Korea,^[3] the Korean government's plan was to invest $8.2 billion into offshore wind farms in order to increase the total capacity to 2.5 GW until 2019.^[4] In April 2020, the government announced the “Korean Green New Deal” which includes plans to drastically increase wind power through the expansion of domestic wind power facilities to include 8 MW offshore wind turbines by 2022 and floating offshore wind systems by 2025.^[3]