South Korea and the United States have both invested resources into cutting edge developments in design
and optimization of wind power technologies, ranging from motors, to blade design, and offshore wind
design. Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) has a number of wind energy technology projects aimed
at improving the optimization of the technologies. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is focusing their wind
energy technology R&D on Vertical Access Wind Turbines (VAWTs) with the hope that these VAWTs will
drastically improve the LCOE of offshore wind technology to allow it to better compete with alternative
forms of energy generation.
