Doosan Fuel Cell expands exports with China deal

South Korea's Doosan Fuel Cell on Monday said it has signed an export contract worth 346.9 billion won($255 million) to supply large-scale versions of its hydrogen fuel cells to China's ZKRG Smart Energy Technology, with which it has formed a joint venture.

ZKRG is a hydrogen fuel cell company in China that uses combined heat and power, or cogeneration. In September of last year, it supplied four 440-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cells from Doosan Fuel Cell to the Nanhai district of the city of Foshan in China's Guangdong province.

The contract stipulates that Doosan Fuel Cell export 105 megawatts worth of the cells to China -- 50 MW by 2024 as finished products and 55 MW as parts by 2026.

The two companies also pledged to form a joint venture to stimulate the Chinese market for power generation from hydrogen fuel cells and find and sell elements for related business opportunities. Their first task is supplying such cells to a CO2-free pilot project for hospitals to be launched in Guangdong.

Doosan Fuel Cell said China's building of infrastructure for a decentralized district heating system as well as its rising interest in hydrogen as an eco-friendly energy source had a positive effect on this deal. High demand for cogeneration-capable hydrogen fuel cells in city clusters in the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Hebei is expected to spur higher sales of the Korean company's phosphoric acid fuel cells, which can produce both heat and electricity.

Doosan Fuel Cell COO Je Hu-seok said, "ZKRG, a cooperative partner which helped Doosan Fuel Cell become Korea's first company to export hydrogen fuel cells, expects synergy to gradually expand based on the high level of trust and business understanding between the two companies," adding, "If demand later reaches a certain level, we can accelerate supply expansion by setting up a corporation in China to build a hydrogen fuel cell plant and provide related services."

Write to Jae-Fu Kim at hu@hankyung.com