South Korean
power plans
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy
of the South Korean government has
revealed revised plans for its $9 billion
offshore wind power project. The aim
now is to develop a 100MW test project
in 2014, a 400MW project in 2016, with
a final 2GW project by 2019.
The government said Korea Electric
Power Corp will be leading the
development of the projects.
Eight suppliers will be involved, including
Doosan Heavy Industries, Hyundai, and
Daewoo. Only Doosan has an offshore
turbine, which is yet to be deployed in
the water, but Daewoo has expressed
an interest in acquiring Bard,
the German offshore turbine
manufacturer and developer.
South Korea does not have any offshore
wind farms, although Doosan is currently
supplying a 60MW project off Jeju island,
in the south of the country, which
is expected to be online by June 2014.
Experts estimate that the country
has the potential to generate as much
as 15.48GW through offshore wind.
wiredInUSA - December 2011
ASIA / AFRICA NEWS
29
Plans for
large-scale fiber
access network
Alcatel-Lucent and China Unicom
have announced plans to launch one
of China’s largest fiber broadband
access networks to date. Alcatel-Lucent
has been selected as the major
supplier for China Unicom’s expansion
of its broadband access network based
on GPON technology in 29 provinces
to satisfy growing demand for capacity-
intensive applications such as interactive
TV, video-on-demand services, gaming,
social networking and more.
An extensive effort is taking place across
China to expand the reach of fiber-optic
networks to provide superfast Internet
to millions of households. Alcatel-Lucent
is deploying its Gigabit Passive Optical
Networking (GPON) platform to ensure
China Unicom’s network will be capable
of boosting speed and capacity
as subscriber demand increases.
China Unicom’s project will be the largest
deployment of GPON technology
to date.
Rajeev Singh-Molares, Asia-Pacific president
at Alcatel-Lucent, said: “This project
represents another major milestone in the
rapid expansion of broadband in China.
It also demonstrates our strong and
growing leadership position in the FTTx
market as we help accelerate availability
of superfast broadband throughout
China.”
