Episode 4 – US Lease Refunds, Korea’s Auction Surge & Taiwan CPPAs – WindLogix Offshore Wind Podcast

Bahzad Ayoub   0:10
Welcome to episode 4 of Westwood Global Energy Group’s WindLogix Offshore Wind Podcast. I’m your host, Bahzad Ayoub, Offshore Wind Manager at Westwood. And once again, I’m joined by our two offshore wind senior analysts, Peter Lloyd Williams and Hui Min Foong. Hello to you both.

Peter Lloyd-Williams   0:26
Hi, everyone.

Hui Min Foong   0:28
Hi, everyone.

Bahzad Ayoub   0:30
Now in this episode, we’ll be discussing the topic of lease refunds in the US. We’ll also cover recent news updates from South Korea, covering project updates, supply chain agreements and bidding activity. Finally, we’ll provide some key highlights from our 1Q 2026 quarterly report and also provide an overview of our latest client briefing that takes a deep dive into TSMC and its role as a major offtaker of offshore wind in Taiwan. But before we get to the first topic, Hui Min recently attended the Recharge Wind Power Summit in Singapore, where she also presented and chaired a panel session. Now, Hui Min, what was the feeling towards a sector at the event and the direction it is heading at?

Hui Min Foong   1:12
Thanks, Baz. The summit went really well, actually, and it brought together industry players not just from APAC, but also Europe and other global markets. In terms of sentiment, one of the key themes was how the current energy crisis and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East are actually accelerating the energy transition, especially through the lens of energy security.

There is a drive to reduce reliance on imported fuels, and this is creating a stronger push factor for renewables like offshore wind that can be developed domestically.
For APAC specifically, the region is cognizant of current challenges, but the outlook remains positive, and we are seeing a strong pipeline ahead, especially with several auctions already launched this year, which is set to drive new project development momentum by next year.

With the event being held in Singapore, Singapore’s role in the regional market was also highlighted. And while Singapore does not have domestic offshore wind projects, the nation plays a significant role in the regional industry and supply chain, especially from a maritime construction and services perspective, as well as a finance perspective, where Singapore has strong expertise.

So overall sentiment, yes, current momentum has slowed. However, the industry is recalibrating to drive longer term growth.

Bahzad Ayoub   2:37
Thanks for that great overview. And in terms of the presentation you delivered and panel discussion, can you provide some highlights from these as well, please?

Hui Min Foong   2:45
Yeah, so I presented and hosted a panel on auction design in APAC, and it facilitated a great discussion between different industry stakeholders, from developers to EPCI contractor to technical consultancy and risk advisory players. Some of the key discussion points centred around viable risk allocation frameworks and a call for increased flexibility as a core auction design principle to help ensure projects could actually be built going forward amid changing market conditions.

In a separate session, I spoke about the Taiwan market, current status, outlook, auction performance, and supply chain. Taiwan is the fifth largest global market for offshore wind in terms of installed capacity. And it is the largest in APAC outside of Mainland China.
However, Taiwan’s momentum has slowed in recent years due to several project cancellations from the Round 3 auctions. With the recent launch of the Round 3.3 auction in April, this provides Taiwan with the opportunity to regain its development momentum.

Taiwan’s supply chain, which is well established and diverse, is also well positioned to then support the new development. However, reliance on corporate power purchase agreements remains critical. TSMC is still the main offtaker and Peter has some great insights on this that he can share later on.

Bahzad Ayoub   4:20
Thank you for that, Hui Min. Yes, we will be chatting about TSMC later on as well. But for now, we’ll be moving away from the APAC region, going over to the US. So Peter, there was news that Ocean Winds has agreed to terminate two US offshore wind leases and that would receive refunds for these from the federal government.
Now, can you provide further information regarding this? And do we think more developers will potentially follow this route in the US offshore wind market?

Peter Lloyd-Williams   4:50
Yes, thanks, Baz. On the 27th of April, the US Department of Interior announced a dollar for dollar reimbursement agreement for two offshore wind leases. That was Bluepoint Wind off New York and Golden State Wind, also known as Morro Bay Sea off California. Under the two separate agreements, under one of them, Global Infrastructure Partners, which owns 50% of Bluepoint Wind will invest US$765 million in a US LNG facility, after which the DOI will refund the original US$765 million lease payment. Meanwhile, Golden State Wind will invest US$120 million in the development of US oil and gas assets, energy infrastructure and all LNG projects along the Gulf Coast. So that one’s not quite firmed up yet as to what the actual investment would be.

 

Golden State Wind is 50% owned by Ocean Winds, which also owns the other 50% of Bluepoint Wind. So the deal essentially sees the two leases of the two lease sites exchanging their offshore wind investments for equivalent investments in the industry stated above.

The agreement did not mention Ocean Winds’s South Coast project off the East Coast of the US.

And I think the attraction of the deal to integrated energy companies is fairly obvious. Move out of a market, offshore wind, where margins are fairly constrained at the moment and costs are high, and into a sector, so conventional generation and oil and gas, where returns are generally higher. A lot of the diversified players have already been realigning their portfolios in this manner. So the initiative from the administration aligns quite well with that. We also saw TotalEnergies enter into a similar agreement back in March.

 

It’s kind of difficult to say whether other companies will follow. It will depend on, I think, the alignment between the US government’s investment priorities and a particular company’s portfolio and its exposure and really the question of can the company shift investment in the way that has been done in the previous agreements.

Bahzad Ayoub   6:57
Thank you for that, Peter. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next in the US market where there’s been a lot of changes and shifts in quite a short amount of time.

Now, moving away from the US, we will be going to South Korea, where there’s been quite a bit of activity across various parts of the offshore wind sector. Hui Min, can you give an update on what has been happening in South Korea, please?

Hui Min Foong   7:23
Yeah, South Korea has seen many interesting market developments in the past month or so, given the launch of the 2026 first half auction, which just closed its bidding round in the middle of May. And I’ll leave it to Peter to share more about the auction bidding itself, which did attract strong bidder interest. However, within South Korea, one of the major setbacks recently has been the regulatory hurdles faced by the Anma project, which is a 532MW project that was awarded in South Korea’s 2024 auction. From that same auction round, the Firefly floating project has already stalled, and the outlook for the Anma project now is looking highly uncertain, especially because those regulatory hurdles are linked to military permitting.
The main project shareholder, Equis, is reportedly looking to sell a stake. However, there has been no progress reported on this front yet.

 

At the same time, we are seeing progress on supply chain activity, which is aligned with the broader trend we are seeing in South Korea with a strong push towards localising the supply chain. Local economic and supply chain benefits have influential scoring in South Korea’s auction framework. And with that in mind, Haesong Offshore Wind, for example, which is a CIP-led consortium developing the Haesong 1 and 3 projects, has signed a capacity reservation agreement with Siemens Gamesa. However, assembly is to be done locally in South Korea at Doosan’s manufacturing facility. Soon after, Haesong Offshore Wind also signed a preferred supplier agreement with South Korea’s LS Cable and System.

Beyond the supply chain, we are also seeing more planning toward a shared grid infrastructure network to reduce cost and increase optimisation for offshore wind projects. A recent MoU was signed between KEPCO and the South Korean government, which aims to replace individual grid connexions for each individual project with centralised substations and shared transmission infrastructure. So, this marks a positive first step towards more centralised grid planning, especially in South Korea, where grid constraints have been a concern for offshore wind projects.

Bahzad Ayoub   9:46
Thank you for that Hui Min. Still keeping focus on South Korea and bringing it back to the news regarding the auction bidders. Peter, do you have any views regarding bidding activity?

Peter Lloyd-Williams   9:59
Yes Baz, so we also had the close of bidding for the first half fixed price offshore wind auctions. And in that auction, to remind South Korea is targeting 1GW of fixed bottom capacity, 400MW of fixed bottom public leg capacity and 400MW of floating wind. The auction was oversubscribed with 1.6GW of fixed floating being bid, 600MW of fixed bottom public lead capacity being bid, and 1.5GW of floating wind being bid. Although none of this is a guarantee that we’ll actually see all of the capacity in the headline targets awarded in the One Age 2025 auction, for instance
two projects were bid into the so-called general pot, but neither was successful in that instance.

 

In the current auctions floating category, which industry observers will be watching closely, COP is bidding with its Haewoori projects, while the consortium of Ocean Wind’s, Mainstream Renewable Power and Kumyang are bidding their East Blue Power project. And both of those projects have indicated they’ll be looking to use SK Ocean Plant floating foundations if they’re successful.

Bahzad Ayoub   11:16
Thank you, Peter. Yeah, it’s great to see that there’s quite a lot of strong bidding activity for this auction, and we’ll be keeping an eye out on when the winners are announced.

 

Now, we’ll be moving on to our final topic, which covers some very recent publications. Hui Min, if you could please begin by letting our listeners know some of the key highlights from our 1Q 2026 quarterly report.

Hui Min Foong   11:41
We released our 1Q 2026 quarterly report at the end of April, and just briefly, it is a deep dive into global offshore wind markets, supply chain and equipment, leasing and project development activity, as well as project transactions and PPAs.

Some of the key highlights from this report include the return of subsidies under consideration across several European markets in response to earlier auctions that were not successful. And in the past quarter, new project capacity has been brought online in Japan, which includes the 16.8MW Floating Goto City Project.

Vessel activity continues with two new cable lay vessel orders to support offshore wind as well as offshore interconnector cable projects outside of Mainland China. Overall, what we’ve seen in the past quarter is that activity across the value chain continues, although at a more moderated pace.

Bahzad Ayoub   12:42
Thank you, Hui Min, for that overview. And Peter, you’ve also published a briefing for our WindLogix clients covering TSMC and its position as an offshore wind offtaker in Taiwan. Can you give a quick overview of what this briefing contains?

Peter Lloyd-Williams   12:59
Sure, Baz. Demand for semiconductors has been surging in recent years. There are key components in the computer infrastructure, which is powering the AI boom. And TSMC is one of, if not the world’s most prominent semiconductor manufacturers. Manufacturing semiconductors is a very energy intensive business and TSMC has been particularly prominent in recent years in Taiwan’s offshore wind CPPA market, securing power for its future production. So, the briefing explores why TSMC is such a significant offtaker within the Taiwanese market and why it’s probably unlikely we’ll see an offtaker playing quite such a prominent role in other markets outside of Taiwan.

Hui Min Foong   13:47
And just to add on here, Peter’s briefing is especially timely with Taiwan’s round 3.3 auction ongoing. And we expect projects from this round to remain primarily reliant on CPPAs for offtake. So it’s definitely worth a read, particularly for those interested in Taiwan, fifth largest global market for offshore wind.

Bahzad Ayoub   14:09
Thank you for that, Hui Min, and also thank you, Peter, as well. Great insights from you both, as always. Now, it’s time to end the episode. As always, we’d like to thank our audience for listening. We’d like to encourage you to please get in touch with us if you’d like to discuss any of these or other offshore wind topics with the team. If you’d like to learn more about our publications, which are available to our clients.
We hope you join us for the next episode. And yeah, hope you listen to us then. Thank you all. Goodbye.

 

 

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