Bloom Energy and SK Engineering and Construction have powered on two fuel cell complexes in the Gyeonggi province of South Korea.
The first power plant deployed 19.8-megawatts of Bloom Energy Servers – the largest Bloom Energy project in South Korea to date and the company’s second-largest in the world.
Northern Delaware is the site of larger Bloom energy fuel cell arrays that feed electricity into the Delmarva Power grid. Bloom has its largest assembly plant at the University of Delaware STAR Campus in Newark.
The deployment marks the first-ever solid oxide fuel cell project financed in Korea. This facility alone is designed to generate enough electricity to power approximately 43,000 homes in the area.
Located in the city of Paju, the second plant consists of an 8.1 megawatt fuel cell array of Bloom Energy Servers designed to power nearly 18,000 homes in the area. The new plant generates energy for the city and also supplies its residents in rural areas with natural gas via new city pipelines for the first time.
South Korea is a leader in fuel cell technology for utility-scale power generation. Its six power generation companies have deployed approximately 300 megawatts of fuel cell power to date.
South Korea has also introduced several initiatives to increase power generation from renewable and new technologies.
The government released a Hydrogen Economy Roadmap in 2019 calling for 15,000 megawatts of stationary fuel cells by 2040. South Korea’s Renewable Portfolio Standard offers incentives to generation companies to increase renewable and new technology derived power to 10 percent by 2023. These energy initiatives also promote cleaner solutions and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, a Bloom release stated.
The mountainous nation has been working to increase wind and other sources of alternative energy.
“South Korea is clearly on the leading-edge of our world’s energy future,” said KR Sridhar, founder, and CEO of Bloom Energy. “And, this utility-scale deployment of fuel cells is a powerful proof point of its ambitious energy plan. Bloom Energy is proud to support this visionary effort to make clean, reliable, resilient, and adaptable power generation.”
South Korea was one of the first countries heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the country was successful in keeping business running, and the 19.8-megawatt installation was completed during the pandemic.
In July, Bloom announced plans to enter the commercial hydrogen market by introducing hydrogen-powered fuel cells and electrolyzers that produce renewable hydrogen. These products will be first introduced to the South Korean market in 2021 through an expanded partnership with SK E&C.
