Energy Transition Now Podcast – Episode 27 “Unlocking Offshore Wind in Southeast Asia”

David Linden [00:00:00] Hello everyone. I’m your host, David Linden, the Head of Energy Transition for the Westwood Global Energy Group. And you’re listening to Energy Transition Now, the offshore wind mini-series. On our last podcast, we looked at the potential for offshore wind in new markets around the world. And today, I’d like to dive into one of the world’s most exciting regions, that is working very hard to unlock that potential. South East Asia. I’m really pleased to have the Liming Qiao, the Head of Asia from the Global Wind Energy Council, or better known as GWEC, here with me today to discuss the dynamics of and the outlook for the region, Liming, a warm welcome.

Liming Qiao [00:00:43] Thank you, David. Thank you for having me.

David Linden [00:00:46] It’s an absolute pleasure. Thank you for making the time. So, look, I mean, there are many different ways to start these things off, but I think anyone who is in the wind industry knows what GWEC is. But there are people maybe who haven’t had the pleasure of coming across it yet. So I just wondering if we could maybe start off with, you know, a little bit about GWEC, what is it, what does it do and what’s its kind of mission in life.

Liming Qiao [00:01:09] GWEC Global Wind Energy Council is the Wind Energy Trade Association, and we’re a member based group. And our members represent 90% of the global wind installation. And GWEC is the most active policy advocacy group for the renewable energy industry globally. And we’re also recognised by IRENA and IEA as a voice and representative of the wind and the renewable energy industry.

David Linden [00:01:35] Okay. And that’s both on and offshore, of course.

Liming Qiao [00:01:38] Yes. Yes. Both on and offshore. Okay.

David Linden [00:01:40] Although we will be discussing offshore today. Okay. And then in terms of just just just for clarity, maybe in terms of your role, obviously GWEC covers the world, But I know you’ve got the title of Head of Asia at the moment. So what is it that you actually specifically cover and maybe which countries fall under your remit?

Liming Qiao [00:02:01] So I’m head of Asia and based in Singapore, and the Singapore office actually covers East Asia, excluding China. And that’s the main kind of like offshore markets, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, that that’s mainly these three markets and also Southeast Asia region. We don’t cover South Asia, which are India and Sri Lanka, Pakistan, all those South Asia countries that is covered by another office of GWEC. Same for the China office. We have office covering China. So Southeast Asia, we cover a few markets in the Southeast Asia market that have wind energy that including Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia.

David Linden [00:02:47] Okay. Okay. And I’m looking forward to discussing a few of those in just a minute. And I was maybe giving a rather grand entrance around an exciting region. I do actually think it is a very exciting region because there’s a lot going on there and people maybe get distracted with other parts of the world at the moment. But it is in my mind, very diverse and very interesting. But if you were to sort of look at the context of global markets and how, you know, how Southeast Asia has evolved as an offshore market. Can you maybe just talk us through a little bit around that, that history? How has it evolved and kind of where we are now?

Liming Qiao [00:03:25] Yeah, that’s a brilliant, great question. Usually I mean, you are talking about Southeast Asia offshore market, but usually Southeast Asia is not being recognised as a major, major offshore market as the usual one that we refer to other East Asia market. But now increasingly, we see Southeast Asia has been merged into a promising offshore market. A few market leaders are Vietnam and the Philippines. And before we zoom into those markets, let’s first zoom a little bit back and look at the Southeast Asia as a region and look into how energy transition is being shaped in this region in the past few years, because that’s a very interesting story to look into. And that’s the context. Before we zoom into the offshore market, before we really viewed offshore development in the region. So Southeast Asia is the region with very high population density and huge economic growth and thus very huge and high electricity demand. And the region is also just in the past few years finally started to take energy transition seriously. And I still remember a few years back before I moved to Singapore, before we started the Singapore office. That was the time when the usual rhetoric is that we don’t see Southeast Asia really taking energy transition onto their energy planning. It’s not happening. Southeast Asia is the last part where energy transition is not happening. In Asia. So that’s the normal and the past rhetoric where you describe Southeast Asia.

David Linden [00:05:07] It’s kind of coal, coal and gas dominated historically?

Liming Qiao [00:05:12] Yes, exactly. But when you view the Southeast Asian market, you kind of see a very drastic kind of change just happening in the past few years. And these changes actually happened because of a few key drivers for the energy transition to happen. Number one is the new fossil fuel power plant are no longer able to secure finance, especially the international finance. So no new coal fired plant can be built in the region. And that’s a fact that is actually widely prevailing, kind of like kind trend happening in the region. Number two is the cost of renewable has been dropped dramatically in the past few years, which makes it much more affordable for the region and especially in the current context, where the fuel market is so volatile and the price hikes for coal and LNG has reached a level that we haven’t seen for a long time. And all this just kind of build the case for renewable for wind in such a strong way as the price and cost is no longer that much of a issue. And all this also become a bigger background as well. At the same time, the international climate processes kind of came in leveraging international climate finance, which made all these Southeast Asia countries so hard to turn it down, and which is why we see a number of Southeast Asia countries, including Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, started to commit to net zero and coal phaseout around the time of 2021, which is the time of COP26, and then started to sign their individual JETP program commitment around the time of COP27, which is end of last year. And behind the JETP is actually huge international climate finance to help these countries to finance their climate and energy transition. So this is the kind of the bigger background kind of drivers behind the energy transition in the region. And another thing that is happening is that we’ve seen huge supply chain move out of China to the Southeast Asia region. And a number of the MNCs behind this major supply chain, movements are actually also committed to RE100, which is to reach like 100% of renewable procurement at different stage in the future. And these big MNCs actually do have huge potential needs to source their energy and the electricity needs and uses in the region from renewable energy sources. And currently this demand side players are getting their different requests together and that’s becoming a really non-negligible kind of like forces to demand their new hosting countries to provide renewable energy for them. And just to give an example, Asia Clean Energy Coalition, ACEC, which is a new initiative that is to organise all this renewable energy buyers together, that including Google, Amazon, Nike, IKEA and others, is is being formed in the region. And actually GWEC is one of the co-founders of the ACEC. This new initiative, which is to bring together all this buyers and to help them to really get their renewable energy sources in the region. So that’s that’s the kind of bigger background and which is the story that underpins what we are going to talk about in offshore wind. And actually offshore wind came just at the right time because offshore wind is the one renewable energy sources that can give you the scale, the stability and that whole potential for you for any country in the region that are serious about delivering net zero goals that they have been committed in those COP processes.

David Linden [00:09:33] Wow. Okay. So there’s a hell of a lot going on which is really driving. This is very exciting, actually, to hear you talk about that. Well, I guess when you get to the point of offshore wind, it’s an interesting one. If we maybe just focus very briefly on that one around why offshore wind in the sense of why not solar, why not onshore wind, etc.. Right. If you were to think historically, at least, you know, offshore wind was more expensive. And it is a more infrastructure heavy kind of industry that requires essentially a new supply chain being developed. So what’s the rationale specifically for offshore wind fitting into this? I can see the kind of the scale. I think maybe that is a core part here, but is that apart from the obviously the policy and the demand, which is exciting and driving us towards renewables, what’s driving specifically offshore wind in this region on top of that? Why that technology? Yeah.

Liming Qiao [00:10:30] Offshore wind, this is a perfect question. And actually it asks about the uniqueness of offshore wind comparing with other renewable energy technologies. And there are some features, key features of offshore wind technologies that differentiate it from other, usually we call variable renewable energy sources, a variable renewable energy technologies. And I think the key feature is that this is, according to IEA, the only renewable energy technology that can replace the baseload because it has such a high capacity factor that literally can help and can be the our kind of alternative if we’re serious about replacing coal and other fossil fuel energies. And we need that stability. And it’s unfortunate, this is a podcast if we have the opportunity to show a slide. Actually, I have a few slides which actually perfectly show that the capacity factor of offshore wind is two times that of the solar PV, and it’s also one third higher than that of the onshore wind. And if you compare that with the gas which is used on a kind of like on daily basis, the higher range of how offshore wind capacity factor can reach, which is in the fifties, 50% kind of that range is similar to that of those of the gas which usually run over 60% of the capacity factor kind of that range. And also we do have other graphs showing that with the technology being further developed, which means bigger turbine,higher reliability means that the higher capacity factor is actually further improving. And we do usually use the UK case where the capacity factor, if you view the capacity factor in the past like five or six years, it actually has been growing on annual basis of 2.4, 2.5%, which means that you can further become more, more and more reliable and, Offshore wind technology as a, technology is the only renewable technology that can pick up the base load conversation with the traditional energy technology. And I think another thing is the cost aside, the costing the past eight ish year, the overall global offshore cost has been reduced by 70 to 80%, and there is another 30% of cost reduction that can be achieved at global average level between now and the middle of this decade. So I think all these different, yeah, aspects or different features combined just made offshore wind so unique. And if you have the resources like some of the countries in the Southeast Asia region, you just cannot ignore it. And this is your kind of key way to be net zero because of that reliability, that high capacity factor that it gives you.

David Linden [00:13:52] Okay. So we’ve got economies driving towards net zero and having the finance available to do that. We’ve got demand building up. And as you say, whether it’s the kind of supply chains moving into the region demanding, you know, to be hundred percent renewables wherever it may be, and having a technology that can actually scale up to a significant size and provide reliable energy baseload. I would say there’s a bit of a question around whether you call it baseload, but certainly, yes, it’s supplying a large portion of a power over a longer period of time. And then also the cost element. Yeah, I can see that combination working. But obviously offshore wind is also quite new still to this area. Right. In the grand scheme of offshore wind, even though offshore wind is an industry relatively new, depending on how far back you want to go.

Liming Qiao [00:14:42] Mm hmm.

David Linden [00:14:43] But if so, if you were to just. If the listener, because we don’t have any slides, a sense of where we’re at right now with that technology in the region. I’m talking about a macro level here. It is still in its infancy. Is that is that a fair word to use here?

Liming Qiao [00:15:03] It’s very early stage. I think if you if we look back this moment of time after like 20 years or 30 years, this is like the very, very early stage of offshore wind going global. So I think yes, yes, you’re right. Yeah. This is early stage that a lot of things are being shaped. And the conversation we have with different national government in the region and globally is very, very early stage, like selling the whole offshore kind of technology, how it’s reliable, how the future cost reduction can be, and how it is like such an instrumental part for you to reach to, realise to, meet the net zero goal. That’s the conversation we’re having.

David Linden [00:15:53] Okay. Well, I’d like to come back to a little bit on that as to whether there are lessons learned from Europe in this region. But maybe let’s turn to a country that is, well, you could argue, successful at this stage. Taiwan in this specifically in the market. It’s a market that, as you know, generates a lot of excitement, has had a lot of people move their start up the supply chains, put their HQ there for the region, etc., etc.. And you could argue it’s a first mover. Now I know there are other countries that had a stop and start maybe as well, but it is a market that’s evolving fast. What in your mind is made Taiwan kind of that successful market and is it a kind of a template for the region?

Liming Qiao [00:16:43] Yes, that’s I think picking pick up Taiwan is the right pick because in that sense it is a successful market to kind of deploy the offshore wind in such a short time and so successfully. And also, you know, in a sense that it does made itself a kind of a template for all of how Asian countries can replicate the successful story and do it in such a faster way and just make it happen. There are a few things that Taiwan, I think, made it right. The first thing is they have the right policy framework to kind of kick it off, which is the key to get this this whole new sector to be kicked off is that you need to have a whole set of framework to kick it off. And Taiwan had first the FIT it’s a quite generous level but actually some localisation requirement and then switched to auction. And behind that it’s also like different planning which the most important thing is the very clear and ambitious target for 2034 2035, which gives the industry the visibility of the project volume and that turns into the investment confidence and all those kind of key elements kind of just all happened in a very short period of time, a few years. And that makes very quickly Taiwan like the Asia offshore leaders and there are also some other key aspects to this that for example, Taiwan also did a lot of like a electricity market, like law reforms. And this and that to make it possible for a thriving CPPA market, which is why you we’ve seen the TSMC and the ORSTED 900 megawatt project are being signed as the biggest and one of the biggest CPPA contracts in the world. So these are the things that Taiwan government just did right. Get the policy framework, get the target, make the visibility, make  the, buildthe confidence for people to come. And then a parallel to this, get the right policy framework in place. Another thing that Taiwan did, which is also kind of really unique, is that it kept itself as an open market for international investors, for international experienced developers. This is a market where you see probably the highest number of like offshore players back like a few years ago before, like any of the Japan market or Korea market started to get developed. You everybody that, are offshore players, the key offshore players in Taiwan. And even today you just see more increasingly, more, more, more like European offshore developers come into the market to be in round three. So this is a huge contrast comparing with the other side of the Taiwan Strait, which is China.  China is such a giant offshore wind. But on the other side, it’s also the most closed kind of market for international players when it comes to offshore market, like no international there’s no one international developers that has a offshore product in China. And the turbine market is also heavily dominated by the domestic players. Yeah, it’s just such a huge contrast.

David Linden [00:20:22] It makes sense. Yeah. It’s funny when we when we do a lot of work, there’s a lot of interest in China in terms of what’s going to come out of China rather than what’s happening in China so that you can access the market. It’s quite a different question in a sense. But you’re right, Taiwan is certainly very open in that sense that, Arguably though there are also other things that have gone on, there have been obviously some delays for various reasons and a lot of, I would say rumblings. But let’s call them rumblings from a kind of analytical perspective around things like localisation policy causing delays of investment and clarity as to what can we achieved. Can you maybe just actually, what’s your perception of some of the challenges that the market is still facing to try to make that the kind of the I wouldn’t say the perfect template, but just to sort of get the right framework in place for people to get really comfortable?

Liming Qiao [00:21:19] Yeah, there there is in sense like no country or no market is perfect that ticks every box right.

David Linden [00:21:27] Yeah. Fair point. I chose the wrong word.

Liming Qiao [00:21:29] Yeah. But I think Taiwan, this is very interesting I talked to some quite a number of like journalists in Taiwan who covers very like Taiwan issue for them. They see like issues are really huge on localisation which is indeed very challenging. Bring up the cost in some of the cases and delay the project and for them they see Taiwan market is such a kind of like in such a stage that it’s so challenging. And is it a good story? Is this a case that everybody’s learning? I mean we for  them, they just see loads and loads of challenges. And then I always share with them, the kind of like the regional kind of view that we see Taiwan really do, be that regional leaders in such a way that all these other, even if you view the challenges other markets, it’s just Taiwan’s the issue of a kind of like moved already beyond the first phase it’s like more like the second phase issue. The other markets are having much, much bigger issue. Like it’s about whether we can have the offshore market kicked off, whether we can have like fair competition to allow enough like international players to grab the fair share in the market and Taiwan is dealing with, yes, localisation. And behind that localisation is actually government’s kind of like aspiration of developing the local supply chain, of bringing the jobs to the local community, of finding justification for the public of why they paid such a high tariff in the first of several years. And lots of like local, very much local, kind of like driven, locally driven kind of demands on delivering the local jobs and getting the local economic kind of development that the locals can enjoy. I think all in all, I think that these are the challenges that any market that is experience this kind of this level of development were anyway be facing. And I also do think that there are being addressed in its own way. I’m not saying that we as a trade association that are advocating for that much like prescriptive kind of like localisation requirement in Taiwan and we actually also do think that’s kind of like against what is naturally should be happening on the natural localisation of the supply chain. But I think yeah, the government and the industry are indeed working out their own solutions on this. So I think that’s where we are on Taiwan.

David Linden [00:24:30] Yeah. No and I think, I think we shouldn’t forget that Taiwan kind of had to invent its own rules as well for its own context. And every country, as you say, is doing the same thing, right? You look at the US, you look at other parts of the world right now. You know, I sit here in the UK and there’s a lot of moaning that we didn’t capture a local supply chain. It’s all about that’s how you capture the local supply chain. But all of that but that’s not make it a legal requirement either, because that that I’ll kill things and then it’s a constant debate. So I think every country just has to make its own decision based on its own industrial needs. And, you know, you mentioned the word jobs there, actually is an important reason why people want infrastructure to be built in their country. So certainly in the US, if you go on a few conferences in recent weeks just before we’re talking, it is all about jobs, right? All about jobs. So if you can’t secure those, you can’t secure the industry either. So depends on the local context. Okay, great. So Taiwan moving ahead, doing well. Probably the most mature market in the Southeast Asia region, it’s fair to say. But what about sort of other high potential markets? You’ve mentioned sort of Vietnam, I think. Yeah, but there’s also the Philippines and others, maybe sort of just talking about some of those. Which ones in your mind are kind of moving faster and I wouldn’t say catching up, but certainly have big ambitions to catch up with someone like Taiwan. Which ones are moving faster and why?

Liming Qiao [00:26:11] Both Philippines and Vietnam saw very promising offshore wind markets in the South East Asia region. Vietnam has a target of seven gigawatts of offshore by 2030. What is in the PDP – power development aid draft – pending approval. But that the number is almost there. Philippines doesn’t have a target for offshore, but the potential is as good as Vietnam. And also have the market has attracted a number of offshore players around the world. Same for Vietnam, like a number of like international player players already set up their offices in Vietnam like two or three years back. So these two are kind of like head to head like two players in the Southeast Asia region that are waiting to be like I think the outsider observers always want to compare the two to see which one become the first mover. And if you ask me, yeah, if you ask me this question like 12 months ago, I would definitely say Vietnam, would be the first one and to get something, really get  installed by 2030. But if you ask me this question today, which is like 12 months later, I would probably say Philippines. And there are several reasons for this. Number one is that Vietnam slowed down and what happened is, yeah, there are lots of things going on in the political system. Yeah. Number one is that I just mentioned PDP8, the Power Development Plan 8, which is still not being approved and the country’s major regulatory body is under anti-corruption kind of movement, which delays a lot of the policy and political processes, including this PDP8 approval. And our views for this is that this is probably temporary and some time that we will see everything resume normal and then things will happen again. So in the long term, we still have we’re still quite bullish on the Vietnamese market. I think somewhere down the way we will see it like everything come back to normal, everything put onto the track and it will be up. Quite,  significant offshore market going forward. But we are just in the time in that whole kind of like holding time now and don’t know where when this holding time will end. But at this time, like when we’re in the holding time in Vietnam, Philippines, becoming like our fast moving track just suddenly. And these including this, a few things happened in the past a six months or 12 months. Number one is that we’ve seen the successful running of the green energy auction program. GEAP1 took place last June, which was the auction program to kind of kick start all the renewable energy sources and which kind of give out the life to the renewable energy, to the wind, especially a life of kind of wind energy has been put on hold for development for many, many years and GEAP kind of give life for the renewable energy going forward. And number two, that happened in the past few months is the removal of the restriction for all foreign ownership for wind energy sector. And that means that if there is an international investor or international developer who want to invest in the Philippines, they don’t have to seek a local partner and ask for the local partner to hold their share of the company of 51%. And then they hold the rest of the share. And so that that can significantly enable the international developers in entering into the market. And number three is the RPS – renewable energy portfolio standard – was increased from 1% to 2.5%, and that has actually increased the demand for renewable energy for the utilities. And all this just a positive movement and and also this is kind of driven by the new  government came into force last year, which is very positive to renewable energy and offshore wind particularly. And this year we’ve seen the also the DOE is kicking off the marine spatial planning for offshore and also doing a review of different permitting processes. So, that are all kind of taking place. So all this and on top of that is the DOE is also thinking of including offshore wind into the GAP in the next two years. So all this kind of just give lots of kind of impetus for offshore wind to kick off in the Philippines, which is why when we view this two markets, Vietnam is kind of like in a holding pattern and Philippines is just progressing very fast ahead of the the time.

David Linden [00:31:40] Okay. But arguably, I mean if Vietnam, gets out of the holding pattern, so let’s say tomorrow, you know, they approve the PDP8 and get on with things. I mean, there is in theory an industry that’s done both onshore and intertidal. There is a lot of skills and in the area and an interest in making the market work. Could that not suddenly see it skyrocket versus Philippines, which, you know, is doing a lot of the right things. But like who’s got their main office in the Philippines? Where’s the supply chain? What’s going to happen there? I mean, just as a counterfactual, is that not also still mean it’s still definitely a equal race in some respects. It’s just you’re seeing currently the Philippines take  the flag of Vietnam could still come back as such.

Liming Qiao [00:32:37] I think if you compare that, if you just say tomorrow does everything in Vietnam suddenly move, then we can see them begin to go hand-in-hand. But still, I think Philippines will be just like a few inches ahead because the GAP is in place. And in Vietnam, the auction, that whole mechanism, that whole process, this still needs some quite some time to put into place. And as well as the processes for the leasing in Vietnam, Decree 11 is the one that would determine the leasing processes that will give the service contract, which is still being finalised. And once that one is finalised, then that will kick off the whole leasing process. Where in the Philippines service contract has been given out already in the past two to or one ish year. And we’ve that’s why we’ve seen lots of news about like X company get service contract or why company got service contract in the Philippines. And so those service contract has already been given out in the Philippines, which means those development work in theory can already start to take place once the service contract is being given out. And parallel to that is that this year in just February ish until now, the government is also like doing omnibus guidelines on how to regulate the service contracts processes, which is to kind of like get clear the whole leasing processes on how they giving out previously the service contract and how in the future the service contract will be given that kind of clean up the whole leasing processes and put a proper proper processes process into place. So in terms of where Philippine and Vietnam are and are at on the leasing, on the auction, which is the offtake or revenue mechanism design, the Philippines is like two steps ahead already.

David Linden [00:34:50] Okay. I guess if you look at it through that lens and the interesting, you’ll see, I guess what matters a lot in these markets is momentum. So if you’ve got momentum and you’ve got demand, you execute. Developers are basically looking for acreage right now, right? They’re trying to work out how do I build my portfolio. And there is a lot of interest, a lot of money. So how do I build my portfolio? They’re much more likely to go after a market which essentially has, you know, that momentum behind them to do well to build that. Okay, Fascinating. All right. Well, we’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll put some bets on to see who does make it first. But I can see your money’s on the Philippines at this stage in terms of moving forward the fastest. Maybe then if we just look at, there are a whole series of other countries we could talk about, I suppose, and maybe I’m a little bit biased here, but I’ve been looking at South Korea a little bit more recently. A lot of interest, particularly from the floating wind side of things. For various reasons we can talk about that for a long time. But, you know, in theory, this is the first gigawatt market for floating wind. And that’s why people do like to just understand what’s going on there. But, you know, it hasn’t always been a perfect smooth curve and everything goes wonderfully. But it is a market with opportunity. Could you maybe just briefly touch on Korea as a market in terms of where that’s at, what maybe what challenges it is facing, but also what is it doing to try and move itself forward? Because it does have a lot of opportunity, but it kind of needs to do a few things to reach that opportunity set.

Liming Qiao [00:36:33] Korea is another interesting market, as you said. This is a floating market, a few markets in the region, are potentially big floating market. Korea is one of them. Japan and Philippines, after a few years, will also become of become a floating market. So in terms of that floating market features, Korea is definitely interesting. And I think Korea also attracts a number of international players also because there is things are moving like people are going there and got their EBLs get there, which is similar to the service contract to get things done. You can start to operate, you can start to kind of do the pre-development work. And I think another key thing that happened is that last year there was the presidential election. Prior to the presidential election, people were worried that if People Power Party PPP wins, which in the end this is the case that the current ruling party is the PPP. So when PPP becomes people previous, they were worried that what will be the offshore wind policy, because the offshore wind policy or offshore wind policy has to be advocated by the previous ruling party. But in reality what happened is that this government actually in its 10th Basic Plan, actually set a target for offshore wind even higher than the previous government. Previous government was 12 gigawatt by 2030 and the new government’s targets translate into 14 gigawatt by 2030. So it actually confirms and really gives the industry an assurance that this is the market that will continue going forward despite any change in the political system. And so that’s a big assurance. And yeah, so another thing is that is right now going on is the National Assembly is actually preparing bills on one stop shop for offshore wind development that would potentially streamline the whole process for the permitting and also just make the whole process more easier. And also kind of like put everything previously were not clear on the structure to give a more clearer processes for how things would happen on permitting on leasing on permitting on product development going forward. So that’s something worth watching how this bill will come out, what will be the shape of the bill and how that will shape the future kind of offshore development in Korea.

David Linden [00:39:26] Yeah, so we’re certainly watching it very closely. There’s a lot of, you know, also M&A activity happening, people moving, moving their HQ there, you know, and certainly feeling it’s an investment opportunity and actually from a floating wind perspective, also a, what lessons can you learn there that you can take elsewhere? Right. Everyone assumes it’s the UK or other parts of the world where floating wind will be first and it will be big. Yeah, it’s coming. But actually this is being used as the market that it can actually be tested to see how things work and then taken elsewhere can actually determine technology choices around the world, which, you know, could happen obviously we don’t quite know, but it will certainly be one to watch. But are interesting to hear about those changes. So lots of good hope for South Korea. Okay. Then I think what might be useful for us in terms of maybe closing things off here a little bit is to finish off with talking about kind of the region as a whole and how it’s doing. And, you know, we’ve talked about specific markets, but if we think about what’s happening in the world right now where, you know, there is a kind of cost inflation moment happening, there is a supply chain shortage is certainly being reported in every part of the world you can possibly think about. There are changes in leasing grounds and rules and opportunities, etcetera. And this region is, you know, in theory, just one region of a global portfolio that a developer could go after. So just in your own mind, if you were to sort of put the region back into context again from a global perspective, a) how’s it doing in terms of its own targets? Do you see it reaching its own 2030 targets if it has them, I know some of them have it and others don’t. Right. But how they doing, would you say in general? But also in a global context, how would you say this region sort of fares relative to others? And that’s quite difficult to do. But just to give people a sense of how interesting this market still is for people relative to others.

Liming Qiao [00:41:33] That’s a really, really good question. I think first, on how this region is doing in terms of the 2030 target. It’s not every country has the 2030 target. But I think, yeah, you are asking.

David Linden [00:41:46] The ambition, the 2030 ambition now.

Liming Qiao [00:41:48] Where we are in terms of the ambition, how we are progressing on meeting those ambitions. I think this is a very interesting decade. Now to 2030, this is a decade where offshore wind is coming to Asia, is coming out of Europe, and it’s coming to Asia and also developing in North America. But this decade of offshore really coming to Asia is actually a time where we are defining the rules of the game or in other words, the route to market for offshore to get developed. This is the time or this decade is the time where the regulators are learning about how to deploy offshore wind. What should that framework of policy look like? And they have been making some mistakes by, just introducing the processes, the leasing processes before a proper marine spatial planning is done, which we’ve seen like happening a few markets. And, and they also like trying to figure out the whole processes, of how auctions should be designed, whether they should choose one stage auction or they should choose two stage auction. This is a big kind of learning period. And there are mistakes. There are processes put into place to kind of rectify the mistakes. But this is like I said just now, the rules of the game being a set up. And that means that if we are just focusing on the target, we probably won’t see the target or that ambitions, that ambition being met in that way. But this is also very important that once you get all the rules right in place on track, then the next decade is the delivery decade and is actually not only the delivery decade, but also the acceleration decade, which I believe will really be the case. And yeah, I think that that just means that there’s few years between now and 2030 is super interesting and they’ll also be super complicated or confusing for some of the markets and for some of the newcomers to the market. But this is also like a super interesting time that you see things being shaped up. You see how dynamics is between the industry and the government. And for us as the industry associations, which our mission is actually to help the industry to get the right policy into in place. And we are on a daily basis talking to the different national governments to basically advise them on how the policy framework should look like. Our interesting is our work is quite interesting in that sense and we see lots of like common cases or common kind of like issues across different markets and, and being able to advise the government on those issues is also make our work really interesting and rewarding in some of the cases.

David Linden [00:45:01] Yeah, absolutely. I can imagine it can be both really rewarding, but frustrating at times.

Liming Qiao [00:45:09] True. True.

 

David Linden [00:45:10] I see. Wonderful. Well, look, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. Best of luck with progressing those markets further. You know, continuing to drive the offshore wind industry. See, certainly a huge amount of potential. And we’re looking forward to seeing some of those other markets develop. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Hope you enjoyed it. Please make sure you subscribe. Give us a rating and share with your friends and talk to you next time.

 

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