HD Hyundai secures Korea's hydrogen engine generator project

HD Hyundai Infracore Co., a construction equipment and engine manufacturer, said on Thursday it has won the government's first project to develop generators that use hydrogen to produce electricity.

HD Hyundai will develop generators each with 500 kilowatt-electric (kWe) capacity using hydrogen as its only combustion fuel, as well as distributed generation systems.

The state-run Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning will inject 14 trillion won ($1 billion) into the project through June 2027.

Separate from the national project, HD Hyundai has developed a 200 kWe hydrogen combustion engine generator for commercial vehicles and is testing it for mass production to begin around the end of 2025.

It will also develop recycling technology for waste heat produced from generators while verifying the technology of using both hydrogen and ammonia as generator fuels.

Korea East-West Power Co., Korea Western Power Co. and Pyeongtaek City Corp. will support the demonstration of the technology and the generators at their hydrogen supply facilities.

HD Hyundai will also team up with the power utilities to develop hydrogen engines for emergency power supply systems, renewable energy facilities in industrial complexes and electricity supply to data centers.

According to MarketsandMarkets Research, the global hydrogen generator market is forecast to grow at an average annual rate of 10.2% to $257.9 billion by 2028, compared with $158.8 billion in 2023.

Next month, HD Hyundai Infracore will showcase the prototypes of its hydrogen engine used in commercial vehicles and hydrogen power generators at H2 MEET, South Korea’s largest hydrogen industry fair.   

Write to Hyung-Kyu Kim at khk@hankyung.com
 


Yeonhee Kim edited this article.