SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
SK E&C, the Engineering & Construction arm of SK Group, the third largest conglomerate in Korea, and Bloom Energy Corporation (BE) today announced they have won three contracts to supply Bloom Energy Servers in Korea. The wins quickly follow a mid-November 2018 agreement by which SK E&C became Bloom Energy’s distributor in the country. It also builds upon the partnership that delivered a utility scale project into commercial operation in Bundang, Korea last year.
SK E&C will supply Bloom Energy Servers to Korea Midland Power Co. (KOMIPO), one of Korea’s six regional power generation companies, and to KT Corporation (formerly known as Korea Telecom), South Korea’s largest telecommunications company.
The project with KOMIPO is a 6 MW fuel cell installation. It is located in a cultural park located at the center of the Seoul metropolitan area, which has a population of more than 25 million people. The high space-efficiency, pleasing aesthetics, low sound level, low CO2, and virtually no smog emissions of the Bloom Energy Servers makes an ideal fit with the surrounding park land and nearby residential buildings. The project will provide electricity directly to the national grid, powering more than 12,000 homes.
SK E&C will also supply Bloom Energy Servers to power two projects for KT Corporation. Each project is 900 KW and will also provide electricity directly to the national grid, powering more than 1,800 homes. The deployments are part of KT’s Smart Energy initiative to become a leader in advanced energy technologies.
“In a post-climate change world, we are all in a fight against carbon in the atmosphere, and time,†said Bloom Energy Founder, Chairman and CEO KR Sridhar. “We are proud to support South Korea in its expedited efforts to source low-carbon, clean, reliable, always-on electric power.â€
South Korea has become a world leader in the deployment of fuel cells for utility-scale electric power generation with approximately 300 megawatts deployed. The country’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) 8th Electricity Supply Demand Plan has called for a further expansion of these deployments to approximately 600 MW by 2022.
Bloom Energy Servers have the highest delivered electrical efficiency of any commercially available electric power generation system in the world, resulting in low fuel consumption. This particularly is important in Korea, since the country imports all of its natural gas, with resulting high fuel costs.
Korea is the most densely populated of the world’s major economies, with more than fifty million people inhabiting just 100,000 square kilometers. It has the highest per capita electricity consumption in Asia. Only about 30% of the country is considered lowland, thus its terrain and high property development costs make the high power density of fuel cells an attractive solution for urban installations.
The strategic partnership between Bloom Energy and SK E&C began when the companies came together in December of 2017 to bid successfully for South Korea’s first solid oxide fuel cell installation. The 8.35 MW Bloom Energy Server solution for a utility site south of Seoul is complete and began commercial operations in late 2018. The project utilizes a highly innovative “Power Tower†design and is one the world’s most energy-dense power plants, generating one megawatt for every 787 square feet.
About Bloom Energy
Bloom Energy’s mission is to make clean, reliable, and affordable energy for everyone in the world. The Company’s product, the Bloom Energy Server, delivers highly reliable and resilient, ‘Always-On’ electric power that is clean and sustainable. Bloom’s customers include twenty-five of the Fortune 100 companies and leaders in cloud services and data centers, healthcare, retail, financial services, utilities and many other industries. For more information, visit www.bloomenergy.com
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