Doosan inks $214 mn deal for Korea combined cycle power plant

Major South Korean power plant builder Doosan Enerbility Co. won a 280 billion won ($214.5 million) deal to supply key components such as a gas turbine to the country’s first combined cycle power plant to be developed with homegrown technology.

Doosan said on Wednesday that it signed a deal with Korea Midland Power Co. (KOMIPO), wholly owned by the state-run utility Korea Electric Power Corp., to provide a 380-megawatt (MW)-gas turbine, a steam turbine and heat recovery steam generators (HRSG) for a new combined cycle power plant, the country’s first project to apply homegrown technology.

The combined cycle power plant with a total capacity of 569 MW will be built by June 2026 in Boryeong, about 180 kilometers southwest of Seoul.

KOMIPO aims to convert the power plant into a hydrogen combined cycle power plant to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. A gas turbine can be altered into a hydrogen turbine through changes in some parts.

HOMEGROWN TECHNOLOGY

Combined cycle power plants in South Korea have been equipped with gas turbines manufactured by foreign companies such as General Electric Co. and Siemens, which made efficient maintenance difficult.

Doosan Enerbility, which secured its own gas turbine technology in 2019 as the fifth to do so in the world, has been working to develop the country’s own standard technology for combined cycle power plants with some 340 industry-academic research centers as a national task since 2021.

“We will complete the (Boryeong) project with all our capabilities,” said Doosan Enerbility President & COO Jung Yeonin in a statement.

“Through this, we will vitalize the domestic gas turbine industry ecosystem and prepare the foundation for our global business.”

Write to Mi-Sun Kang at misunny@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.