LSIS breaks ground to build Korea’s first HVDC production base
■ Holds groundbreaking ceremony to build HVDC Busan Plant, for total
investment of 105.6 billion won
■ To complete plant in next year’s first half; seen to complete full lineup of
low to high-voltage AC/CD power facilities
■ Busan Plant to secure HVDC total solutions along with transformers for
conversion
■ Company to challenge for market dominated by 3 major players through
commercialization of technology and production of equipment
■ HVDC essential to Smart Grid era; company to cultivate HVDC as core
pillar of green business
LS Industrial Systems (LSIS) will construct Korea’s first production base for High Voltage
Direct Current Transmission Systems (HVDC).
LSIS announced on September 14 that it had held a groundbreaking ceremony to kick off
the construction of its HVDC plant at the Hwajeon Industrial Complex in the Busan-
Jinhae Free Economic Zone. In attendance were more than 100 dignitaries and guests,
including LSIS Vice Chairman& CEO Ja-kyun Koo, and officials from the Busan
Metropolitan City government and the construction industry.
The Busan HVDC Plant will be constructed as a three-story factory building with a
combined floor space of 5,692 sq. meters on a site covering 12,000 sq. meters.
The HVDC plant, which will be armed with extensive testing facilities, will be completed
in next year’s first half. With a combined investment of 105.6 billion won, the plant will
become Korea’s first production site exclusively dedicated to HVDC.
In his welcome remarks, LSIS Vice Chairman Ja-kyun Koo said, “HVDC is regarded as
‘the culmination of power transmission technology,’ and constitutes a revolutionary
technology that will dramatically change future transmission methods. When the plant is
completed, LSIS will have completed a full lineup of AC and CD power facilities ranging
from low to high voltages.” He went on to say, “If core items of equipment for HVDC are
rolled out here, this plant will come to secure the capacity to provide total solutions for
HVDC systems, along with transformers for conversion that will be produced at the high-
voltage transformer plant at Busan Works.
Vice Chairman Koo also said, “We expect that the new plant will generate massive
synergistic effect, since it is being constructed at a site near Busan Plant for the
production of high-voltage transformers at Busan Works, which was completed in last
April,” adding, “In order to ensure that LSIS and Busan continue their march towards
becoming a global enterprise and a global city, we will cultivate the Busan HVDC
Plant into the best HVDC production base in the world.”
By banking on the HVDC plant, LSIS aims to secure HVDC technologies in phases,
including those for 80 kW-class products, and 250 kV and 500 kV-class products, and
step up its advance into the global HVDC market, which is virtually dominated by ABB,
Siemens, and Alstom.
Currently, the global HVDC market is valued at about KRW 9 trillion, and the three
companies occupy a 95 percent share of the market. LSIS plans to become the first
Korean player to move into the market, with the target of securing annual sales of up to
KRW 1.75 trillion in the HVDC field by 2019.
Notably, through the construction of the plant, LSIS aims to cultivate HVDC into one of its
key green business segments.
HVDC is a technology that transforms AC power generated at a power plant into DC with
a power converter, and transmits DC power, before converting it back to AC power and
supplying it to customers. HVDC, which is essential for power transmission methods
using undersea cable, has been drawing more attention of late.
Wind power plants generate AC power, whose quality is unstable due to fluctuating wind
speeds. However, the AC/DC converting devices of HVDC can stabilize the quality of
such electricity, and a quantity of power converted into DC can be stored in a large
capacity energy storage system for future use when necessary.
HVDC, a highly efficient mode of power transmission, can transmit huge quantities of
power - including solar energy generated in desert areas, wind power from the sea or
vast plains, or hydraulic power from areas with ample water resources – to a large city
located far away. As such, HVDC is considered a core technology for Smart Grid
solutions, and is drawing keen attention as a promising future business in the export
sector.
As such, LSIS plans to develop DC transmission technology, an area in which Korea
lags behind relative to neighbors such as Russia, China and Japan. By so doing, the
company plans to not only interlink this technology with renewable energy, but to gain
the upper hand in businesses designed to link HVDC between Northeast Asian
countries, including power systems between the two Koreas.
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[Attachments] Description of HVDC
▷ High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) overview :
HVDC is a technology that transforms AC power generated at a power plant into DC with
a power converter, and transmits DC power, before converting it back to AC power with
a converter again at a power distribution site and supplying it to users.
▷ Advantages of the Direct Current Transmission method :
First, DC voltage is only about 70 percent of the maximum value of AC, thus enabling
convenient insulation of the equipment. Since DC is low in voltage, it helps reduce the
volume of insulators installed in diverse devices and the height of power transmission
towers.
Second, when transmitting the same volume of current, the DC method entails a smaller
volume of transmission loss of electricity compared with AC, and thus improves
transmission efficiency.
Third, DC can reduce the use of electric cables and the number of terrestrial areas
required for transmission lines, allowing efficient power transmission. Notably, it allows
for more than twice the volume of power transmission of AC power.
Fourth, DC can enhance the stability of systems by interlinking two AC systems whose
voltages or frequencies are different. When an AC system is out of order, it can also help
block the spread of the problem to a neighboring system. A massive blackout, such as
the one that occurred in the eastern U.S. in recent months can be prevented through the
use of HVDC, as this can prevent an accident that occurs in one side from spreading to
the other. On the Korean Peninsula, where South Korea is to supply power to North
Korea, the frequencies of power in the two countries are different, and the quality of
power in the North is poor. Hence, HVDC technology would be the best method of
supplying power to the North while maintaining power quality.
Fifth, DC entails no limit in the geographical scope of transmissibility. Notably, for inland
power transmission that exceeds 500 km, and undersea power transmission for a
distance exceeding 40 km, the construction costs for the DC method are lower than
those for the AC method. In the case of China and India, the distance between power
plants and users can amount to 1,000 km, and thus HVDC is being rapidly adopted
in those countries.
Sixth, compared with the AC transmission method, the DC method reduces the
occurrence of electromagnetic waves in transmission lines, which in turn helps reduce
the malfunctions and noise that occur in telecom lines or various electronic devices.
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