Three Structural Shifts in One Announcement

The 2026 H1 auction is not an incremental update to prior rounds. It represents a convergence of three structural shifts that will define Korea’s offshore wind market through the end of the decade.

First: pricing dualism. For the first time in Korea’s auction history, fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind carry separate price ceilings — 171.229 KRW/kWh and 175.100 KRW/kWh respectively. The 3.871 KRW/kWh differential is a policy acknowledgement that floating LCOE is structurally higher, and that a single-ceiling model was suppressing floating participation. This is the government formally adjusting the rules to reflect commercial reality.

Second: the end of non-price gatekeeping. Prior rounds used a two-stage evaluation in which non-price scores (supply chain, national security, local employment) determined who advanced to the price stage. Projects that failed to clear the 1st-stage threshold were eliminated regardless of their price offer. That mechanism is gone. Non-price criteria now function exclusively as tiebreakers. The final allocation will be determined almost entirely by price.

Third: performance accountability. Equinor’s Firefly floating project — awarded in 2024, unable to execute its REC offtake contract — triggered a formal 2-year ban and forced a rethink of participation rules. This round requires a binding commitment letter at application and introduces a 5-year participation ban for post-award non-performance. The government is signalling that the auction is a financial commitment, not an option.

With 4.1 GW+ of identified pipeline competing for 1,800 MW, oversubscription exceeds 2.3×. Price competition will be severe.

Four Years, Four Structural Transitions

Korea’s fixed-price competitive auction mechanism was introduced in 2022 and has undergone significant structural revision in every subsequent round. The trajectory is from supply-volume focus toward competitive efficiency and cost stabilisation.