Ørsted and POSCO Form Offshore Wind and Hydrogen Pact in Korea

Ørsted and POSCO Group, one of the largest conglomerates in Korea, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen collaboration on offshore wind and renewable hydrogen in Korea.

POSCO and its affiliates will apply the group’s joint capabilities to support the development of Ørsted’s 1.6 GW offshore wind projects off the coast of Incheon City. Moreover, Ørsted and POSCO will conduct feasibility studies on potential collaboration on renewable hydrogen.

Korea has set a target of installing 12 GW offshore wind capacity by 2030.

In September 2020, Korean President Moon Jae-in further announced the Green New Deal which targets net-zero emissions by 2050.

Matthias Bausenwein, President of Ørsted Asia-Pacific, said: “With the Danish state as our majority owner, Ørsted is committed to working with local partners and suppliers across the value chain to build a vibrant Korean offshore wind industry through our 1.6 GW Incheon projects and potential more buildouts in other regions of the country. In addition to greening the electricity mix, offshore wind can become the feedstock for renewable hydrogen which can help decarbonising sectors that cannot be directly electrified such as transport and heavy industry.”

Ørsted has a well-established relationship with POSCO, whose steel business has been one of the strategic global suppliers and a partner supplying over 100,000 tons of steel for Ørsted’s Hornsea 1 and three other offshore wind farms, the world’s leading offshore wind developer said.

In December 2020, POSCO Group joined the Korean government’s decarbonisation declaration, announcing its ambition to become a leading renewable hydrogen company and reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

“POSCO has placed its hydrogen business as one of our growth engines for the group and is working to discover renewable hydrogen business opportunities,” Jung-son Chon, POSCO Group Senior Executive Vice President, said.

”We hope to see our renewable hydrogen business pick up speed through this business collaboration with Ørsted. Combining the operational know-hows of Ørsted, a global company in the field of offshore wind and renewable hydrogen, with the business capabilities of POSCO Group, which includes construction and energy, both companies will be able to create synergies for a win-win collaboration.”

Ørsted recently started construction of its first renewable hydrogen demonstration project H2RES in Denmark and is involved in nine renewable hydrogen projects in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

“With a vision of creating a world that runs entirely on green energy, Ørsted transformed from a fossil-fuel intensive utility to the world’s most sustainable energy company,” Mads Nipper, Group President and CEO of Ørsted, said.

”We are determined to be a global catalyst for systemic change and to help countries and companies undertake their green transformation through scaling existing green energy solutions such as wind and solar and developing and scaling new green solutions such as hydrogen. It is wonderful that we could announce the MoU with POSCO during the P4G summit in Korea, which gathers global thought leaders and decision-makers to work towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals and creating a more sustainable world.”