Current resident participation offshore wind projects exclude fishers despite law's intent
More than six months have passed since the Special Act on the Promotion of Offshore Wind Power Deployment and the Development of Related Industries took effect, yet concerns are being raised that it is not functioning properly. Experts say that to uphold the legislative intent and guarantee the rights of fishers, a more sophisticated regulatory design is urgently needed, including making fisher participation ratios mandatory when pursuing resident participation offshore wind projects.
The Special Act on the Promotion of Offshore Wind Power Deployment and the Development of Related Industries, enacted in 2025, took effect on March 26 to prevent indiscriminate site acquisition and promote systematic offshore wind development. The fisheries sector has paid particular attention to the law's requirement that developers seek acceptance from stakeholders including fishers and other interested parties. Article 18 of the law allows residents and fishers to participate in offshore wind power projects and share in profits, and stipulates that fishers whose fishing activities are affected by the installation of offshore wind facilities may receive preferential participation amounts.
Concrete standards for fisher participation remain unclear
However, six months after the law took effect, concrete standards to support fisher participation remain unclear. This is because subordinate regulations that would set detailed matters such as the scope of eligible fishers and the scale of preferential treatment have not yet been established. A Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment (MCEE) official stated that the goal is to establish the offshore wind law's resident participation profit-sharing notice by year-end, but added that the ministry is reviewing the matter from multiple angles because it could be linked to profit-sharing arrangements for other renewable energy sources such as solar power.
The problem is that as the notice establishment is delayed, fishers' rights are not being protected in resident participation projects. Currently, the Renewable Portfolio Standard management and operation guidelines apply when pursuing resident participation projects, but these guidelines allow projects to proceed even without fisher participation. The current RPS notice stipulates that regardless of how stakeholders such as residents, adjacent residents, and farmers, ranchers and fishers are categorized, projects can proceed as long as their combined participation amount meets at least 30 percent of total resident participation funds.
Additionally, the structure makes it difficult for fishers to participate. Although the current notice includes fishers eligible for damage compensation as targets for offshore wind resident participation, the confirmation process alone takes more than two years, creating significant barriers for fishers to participate from the early stages of projects.
According to the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives, resident participation offshore wind projects are being pursued at two sites: Jeonnam P1 - SK E&S and Hanlim in Jeju. However, only around 1,650 residents and adjacent residents participate in the first project and around 1,000 in the second, with no fishers participating at all. An official from a regional fisheries cooperative said that because it takes a long time to confirm which fishers are eligible for damage compensation, fishers are effectively excluded from the resident participation stage.
Experts call for separate fisher participation quotas
Experts emphasize that to address these problems, future resident participation profit-sharing notices should establish fisher participation ratios separately. Rather than continuing the current practice of combining resident and fisher participation rates, the system should institutionally guarantee that fishers, as direct stakeholders in offshore wind projects, participate at a certain minimum level.
Yu Chung-yeol, head of the Marine Environment Team at the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives, said that Article 18 of the offshore wind law is designed to allow fishers to participate directly in power generation projects and continuously share profits, separate from compensation. He suggested that instead of the current RPS standard of combining adjacent residents' and fishers' participation amounts to meet 30 percent or more, a separate approach setting fisher participation at 20 percent or more of total resident participation funds is needed.
In response, an MCEE official stated that concrete proposals related to the resident participation profit-sharing notice have not yet been developed, and that retroactive application and fisher participation ratios will be reviewed by comprehensively considering opinions from stakeholders.
Original Korean article: Korea Farmers and Fishermen Newspaper
English brief by Korea Wind Intelligence, koreawindintel.com
