The Math of ₩250 — Is Korea's LCOE Target Industrial Policy, or Political Declaration?
In December 2025, Korea's government pledged to drive offshore wind LCOE down to ₩250/kWh(~$185/MWh) by 2030 and ₩150/kWh(~$111/MWh) by 2035. Over the same period, global benchmark costs rose +12% and the UK lifted its strike prices by +55%, yet Korea's auction ceiling has been cut every year — cumulatively −18%.
Editor's note: this analysis is written from the vantage point of May 2026, drawing on a continuous narrative of policy moves and market events from 2024 through Q2 2026. Dates such as "H1 2026" or "May 2026" refer to events that have already occurred at time of writing.
Whether Korea's 2030 offshore wind LCOE target of ₩250/kWh becomes working policy or remains a political declaration comes down to two questions. Is the global market moving in the same direction at the same time? And does the resulting price actually clear developers' IRR thresholds? As of spring 2026, the answer to neither is straightforward. The most decisive evidence is not modelled — it is what the market is already doing: the collapse of Equinor's Bandithbul-i floating PPA, zero MW awarded to the general-track in H1 2025, and the exit of 6+ global developers from Korea.
What the Government Promised — and the Ambiguous Starting Line
On 10 December 2025, Korea's Ministry of Climate, Energy & Environment (MCEE) — a new ministry created under the administration of President Lee Jae-myung in 2024 to consolidate energy and climate policy — released the "Plan for Offshore Wind Infrastructure Expansion and Deployment." The headline targets reduce to three lines:
end-2025 ₩300–330/kWh~$222–244/MWh 0.35 GW11 commercial sites
2030 ₩250/kWh~$185/MWh · −24% 10.5 GW~30× today's base
2035 ₩150 or below/kWh~$111/MWh · −55% 25 GW+~71× today's base
The message is clear. Korean developers' realised LCOE — SMP + REC-weighted revenue — currently stands at ₩300–330/kWh; the government intends to more than halve it (to ₩150) within ten years. Capacity is to expand 30–70-fold simultaneously. The two instruments on offer are a step-wise reduction of the auction bid ceiling (H1 2024 ₩209 → H1 2026 ₩171, quoted on the SMP+1REC basis — i.e. the bid price for one REC at the standard weight, not the developer's realised revenue) and an acceleration of volume rounds.
As a statement of intent, the pledge deserves credit. For it to function as industrial policy, however, it must face two questions:
① Global alignment — over the same window, global offshore wind LCOE has risen +12% (BNEF 2026) and the UK's AR7 clearing prices +55%. Is a −24% cut feasible in a market where costs are rising elsewhere?
② Sustainability of the price structure — the ₩300-range developer revenues were made possible by the REC-weight system, now in transition as RPS is phased out. Can the very price structure survive that transition without a clearly designed successor support scheme?
Depending on the answers, ₩250 and ₩150 may become industrial policy — or the fourth in a sequence of missed political declarations. The promise is clear; the question is under what global environment and on what price structure that promise can hold. The sections that follow analyse both axes with data.
The Global Market Is Moving the Other Way
For Korea's downward LCOE target to be reasonable, the global market should be moving in the same direction. The 2024–2026 data points the other way.
BloombergNEF LCOE 2026: the global offshore wind benchmark printed $100/MWh, +12% YoY. BNEF's note: "supply-chain tightness has pushed costs higher across virtually all major markets." Four-hour battery storage, by contrast, fell −27% to a record low of $78/MWh. Offshore wind is the outlier moving up.
UK AR7 (14 January 2026): 8.4 GW awarded, £22 billion in private investment unlocked. Weighted-average clearing price £90.91/MWh — up +54.4% vs AR6. The British government chose to bake inflation, interest rates, and supply-chain pressure back into policy. Its political justification: "still cheaper than new-build gas (£100+)."
The most symbolic event of this period is Ørsted's cancellation of Hornsea 4 (2.4 GW). Won in AR6 at £58.87/MWh in September 2024, the project was abruptly cancelled just eight months later in May 2025. Break-away cost: DKK 3.5–4.5 billion (≈ USD 510–660 million).
Hornsea 4 was cancelled because the LCOE target the UK government had set sat below market reality. Britain then raised AR7 ceilings by 55% and revived the market. If Korea is on the same track with its ₩250 target, the Korean government will reach the same decision point.