South Korean Offshore Wind Turbine Gets Type Certificate

South Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction (DHIC) has received a type certificate for its 5.56MW offshore wind turbine from the international certification agency UL DEWI-OCC.

A type certificate is issued after a comprehensive evaluation of the system’s design, performance test of both the parts and the finished product, and evaluation of the related manufacturing facilities and the quality management system.

According to DHIC, this marks the first time a Korean company has received a type certificate, adding that the new system boasts of having the largest capacity of any model in Korea’s wind power market.

DHIC commercialized the 5.56MW system after conducting two years of R&D work since its acquisition of the 5.5MW wind power technology in 2017. The model has already been operating for about five years in the Jeju Gimnyeong Demonstration Complex.

According to the turbine maker, the system ”demonstrated its excellent stability by operating without a hitch even during the typhoon Chaba, which had recorded the fourth largest ever daily instantaneous wind speed of 56.5m/s in October 2016.”

Sungwon Kim, CEO of DHIC’s Plant EPC BG, said: “This certification is significant in that it has laid the groundwork for our domestic technologies to initiate the government’s ‘New & Renewable Energy 3020 Policy.’ DHIC aims to contribute to expanding the presence of domestic equipment in the domestic power market in which imported products currently account for more than half the market share.”

DHIC was selected as the contractor for the national project to develop an 8MW large-capacity offshore wind power system by the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning last year, and is currently managing the design, manufacturing and demonstration stages with the goal of commercializing the model in 2022.

The company has participated in the 30MW Tamra offshore wind farm and the 60MW Seonam offshore wind farm projects among others, accumulating a supply record of 236.5MW, or 78 units, as of June 2019 in the process.