Pacifico selected for 2.13GW Jindo offshore cluster

Pacifico Energy Korea has been selected as sole developer for the Manho and Jindo Baram projects within South Korea’s 2.13GW Jindo Offshore Wind Integrated Cluster Phase 2, moving the government-designated development area into a more defined developer-led stage.

Pacifico announced the selection on 20 August following an implementation management agreement with Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City and Jindo County. The developer said the decision followed an assessment of development capability and implementation arrangements carried out by the regional authorities.

The government designation provides the more important boundary for the power project. Ministry documentation sets Phase 2 at a maximum 2,130MW, specifies a 345kV grid voltage, places total project expenditure at KRW10.7tn, and gives an implementation period running from January 2026 to December 2033.

The designation is conditional. Government documentation requires military-operational and maritime-boundary consultations to be completed during 2026 and states that the permitted cluster capacity may be reduced depending on the outcome of the military consultation. The 2.13GW figure is therefore a development ceiling rather than operating capacity already secured.

Pacifico describes Manho and Jindo Baram as the second and third phases of its wider 3.2GW Jindo offshore wind project cluster. The first phase, the 420MW Myeong Ryang project, secured an Electricity Business Licence in September 2025 and has progressed environmental assessment work.

The developer lists Manho at 990MW and the wider Jindo Baram project at 1.8GW. Those project-level figures should not simply be added to define Phase 2, because the government designation fixes the integrated-cluster boundary at a maximum 2.13GW while Pacifico’s 1.8GW description refers to the broader Jindo Baram development.

That distinction matters as the programme moves from development language into power engineering. A 2.13GW offshore wind cluster requires more than turbines: inter-array cables, offshore substations, export circuits, landfalls, onshore substations, protection, control, and transmission infrastructure all have to be coordinated before any headline generating capacity becomes usable on the grid.

The government’s 345kV specification provides an early indication of the voltage level at which bulk power from the cluster is intended to interface with the network. At multi-gigawatt scale, the connection is not a secondary work package. Transmission availability can determine both the construction sequence and the amount of offshore capacity that can operate without curtailment.

Pacifico’s own project material identifies offshore substations, export cables, onshore substations, and transmission lines among the infrastructure required across the Jindo programme. The company has also been developing relationships with Korean foundation manufacturers, marine logistics providers, and other offshore-wind suppliers, extending the industrial footprint well beyond turbine procurement.

That supply-chain preparation is important because several large offshore developments moving at the same time can create bottlenecks in steel fabrication, specialist vessels, high-voltage cables, transformers, port capacity, and qualified installation labour. A project may have a consented seabed area and a developer without yet having the industrial capacity needed to install the equipment on schedule.

The latest selection does not itself amount to construction approval. Pacifico says the 990MW Manho and 1.8GW Jindo Baram projects have submitted Electricity Business Licence applications that remain under review, leaving licensing, environmental assessment, marine permissions, financing, procurement, and grid delivery ahead.

That sequencing is especially relevant for offshore wind because the electrical and marine programmes are tightly linked. Turbine foundations can only support generation once array cables and offshore substations are ready, while export systems and onshore connections have to be energised in time to accept power as turbine commissioning progresses.

The Jindo development also carries an industrial-demand angle. Regional authorities are pursuing a proposed Honam Semiconductor Cluster, and Pacifico has linked the offshore programme with future electricity demand from advanced manufacturing and RE100 industrial developments in the region.

Semiconductor fabrication, however, requires highly reliable and tightly controlled power. Offshore wind output varies with weather, so a direct association between a large wind cluster and a semiconductor complex does not remove the need for network balancing, reserve generation, storage, transmission redundancy, and power-quality management.

That makes the grid programme as important as the generation programme. Several gigawatts of offshore output arriving through a limited number of transmission nodes can create significant requirements for reinforcement, protection coordination, reactive-power control, outage planning, and system stability, particularly as neighbouring renewable projects connect to the same regional network.

Developer selection gives Pacifico a clearer commercial role and allows project development to accelerate, but it leaves the most capital-intensive work ahead. The company must still secure the remaining licences, progress environmental and marine approvals, define the final project boundaries, finance the developments, procure major equipment, and coordinate the 345kV connection with the wider transmission programme.

Jindo Phase 2 is therefore best treated as a large offshore power project moving through a significant development milestone rather than as 2.13GW of generation already committed to service. The developer role is now defined and the government has set the cluster envelope; the harder task is converting those decisions into cables, substations, turbines, and dependable grid capacity before 2033.