Hyundai Electric to supply ESS worth $160 mn to KEPCO's substation

Hyundai Electric, an electric systems spinoff from South Korean shipbuilding giant Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., said on Tuesday that it will supply an energy storage system (ESS) worth 209.7 billion won ($160 million) to a substation in Namwon, North Jeolla Province.

The supply volume is the largest since Hyundai Electric started its ESS business.

ESS is an essential component of the ESS construction project for system stabilization at the Shin-Namwon substation, which will be completed by Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) by December next year.

Currently, KEPCO is building 970-MW ESSs over a total of six substations for stabilizing the systems.

Of these, the Shin-Namwon substation, along with the Bubuk substation in Miryang, North Gyeongsang Province, will be built with a capacity of 336 MW, the largest since KEPCO started its public ESS project.

Under the terms of this contract, Hyundai Electric will play a role as a total solution provider that not only supplies major equipment such as power conversion system (PCS), power management system (LPMS), and battery management system (BMS) that make up the ESS but also performs design, construction, and procurement works.

In particular, Hyundai Electric plans to combine LG Energy Solution’s batteries with the PCS technology of Hyundai Plaspo, a company specializing in power conversion devices which it took over in February this year, in order to maximize synergies.

The company also won a public ESS project for KEPCO's Geumak substation in Jeju in September last year.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com