Hyundai Heavy Industries to Invest More Than $760 Million In South Korea's Wind Power Sector

Hyundai Heavy Industries Company Limited (Ulsan, South Korea) will invest more than $760 million to develop its first wind turbine manufacturing facility in Gunsan, South Jeolla province. Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, TX) reports that American Superconductor Corporation (Devens, MA), through its subsidiary AMSC Windtec (Klagenfurt, Austria), will provide licensed designs for wind turbine generators with capacities of 1.65 megawatts (MW) and 2 MW. Both designs are based on doubly fed induction wind turbine technology. In 2007, AMSC, a leading global provider of alternative-energy technology, acquired Austrian company Windtec, which develops proprietary wind power designs.

Hyundai Heavy Industries, which has estimated annual revenues from this venture at $1.16 billion, will initially target the growing wind energy market in the U.S. The first prototype of the wind turbine generator it expected to be completed and commissioned by mid-2009, and the company plans to execute orders by the end of the year. The facility will also manufacture power converters and transformers. The present manufacturing target of 600 MW will be increased to 800 MW by 2010. As part of the agreement, AMSC will provide the main electrical and electronic components for the turbines. Hyundai Heavy Industries has paid license fees to acquire sales and marketing rights for both designs and will also pay royalty on unit sales to AMSC.

Established in 1972, Hyundai Heavy Industries has business interests in shipbuilding, offshore engineering, construction equipment and industrial plant and engineering. The company, which employs more than 24,000 people worldwide, recorded sales of more than $14.56 billion in 2008 and has an order book value of $27.5 billion. The firm had announced that it would invest more than $1 billion to strengthen its renewable energy business. The company has invested $242 million to construct its first solar cell manufacturing facility in Eumseong in South Korea and plans to set up a second unit at a cost of $214 million.

Hyundai's investment in the wind power sector comes at a time when the South Korean government is formulating a national plan to develop renewable energy sources in the country. The government plans to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and increase the contribution of wind, water and solar power in the nation's energy portfolio from the present 2.2 percent to 9 percent by 2030. South Korea plans to increase its wind power capacity to 7,300 MW and solar power generation capacity to 3,500 MW by 2030. The country has more than 145 wind generation units, of which only one has been manufactured indigenously. To help local companies win orders, the government will help set up wind power plants comprising 26 domestically manufactured generators on the eastern and western coasts of the country. Suitability tests are also in progress in Saemangeum to build a 40-MW wind power plant. South Korea plans to invest more than $2 billion this year to develop its alternate energy sector.

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