Siemens Gamesa and Doosan Enerbility have signed a binding framework agreement for a strategic partnership for the South Korean offshore wind market.
The agreement follows a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) the two companies signed in June, under which they were first investigating potential collaboration in several areas, including large-scale offshore wind turbines, sharing of major services and construction of new Korean production facilities, the supply of wind turbine parts, offshore wind turbine installation, and turbine maintenance.
According to the new partners, the now-signed framework agreement lays the foundation for strong local content offerings in the South Korean offshore wind market in the future.
Namely, Enerbility (formerly Doosan Heavy Industries) will assemble Siemens Gamesa’s offshore wind turbine nacelles at its new facility, which is currently in the design phase, and perform turbine assembly in ports serving as staging areas for offshore wind farms.
Furthermore, the Korean company will also undertake the offshore construction of projects that are using Siemens Gamesa wind turbines and perform offshore service on selected orders involving Siemens Gamesa turbines.
The companies said they would implement their partnership scope depending on successful offshore wind orders in the South Korean market.
“We are eager to bring our market-leading offshore skills including our unique offshore Direct Drive nacelle technology to South Korea. We will also greatly benefit from Doosan’s deep understanding of the Korean market to accelerate the country’s energy transition. In doing so, the partnership intends to promote local job growth and inward investment while delivering clean, green energy” , said Marc Becker , CEO of Siemens Gamesa’s offshore business.
Doosan, besides its heavy lifting and construction experience, is also a wind turbine manufacturer. In December 2022, the company obtained a type certification for its 8 MW offshore wind turbine, DS205-8MW, from DEWI-OCC.
Doosan’s DS205-8MW is the largest-capacity, Korea-made offshore wind turbine model to date.
“Both of us being companies with our own offshore wind turbine models and solid track record, we aim to cooperate on broadening our participation in the Korean offshore wind power market and actively pursue promotion of the domestic offshore wind power ecosystem” , said Hongook Park , CEO of Doosan Enerbility’s Power Services Business Group.
“Through this partnership, Doosan looks forward to boosting its competitiveness across the overall offshore wind power sector through measures, such as the upgrading of existing products and diversification of models”.