South Korea completes construction of world's largest hydrogen fuel cell power plant

South Korea on Tuesday announced that it completed the construction of the world's largest hydrogen fuel cell power plant, which holds the capacity to provide electricity to nearly 250,000 households per year. On October 26, South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy announced that the 'Shinincheon Bitdream Fuel Cell Power Plant' at the Shinincheon Bitdream headquarters of Korea Southern Power in Seo-gu, Incheon was complete, ANI reported.

Since 2017, South Korea has been building the plant with a total capacity of 78 MW in four different stages. The world’s largest fuel cell power plant is operated by South Korea’s largest independent power production company, POSCO Energy and Doosan Fuel Cell. 

In 2014, South Korea had commenced operations of the 5.1-acre Gyeonggi Green Energy facility, a 59-MW fuel cell park in Hwasung City, which consisted of a mega energy plant with 21 2.8-MW hydrogen fuel cells supplied by FuelCell Energy of Danbury, Conn. according to Powermag. The country then aimed to modernize its power and energy sector. It then began one of the first large-scale hydrogen fuel cell power plant construction in 2012 as part of POSCO’s vision to enter the Korean clean energy market. 

'Eco-friendly' hydrogen fuel cells power plant to shrink carbon foorprint 

South Korea’s 78.96 megawatt-class power plant outlines the country’s efforts to ramp up the production of clean energy sources and cut down carbon emissions. The eco-friendly Hydrogen fuel cells power plants are getting popular across South Korea as a solution to shrink the carbon footprint. Comparatively, the hydrogen fuel cell emits very little nitrogen oxides (NOX) and sulfur oxides (SOX) as the electricity manufacturing does not involve combustion, ANI reports. “It also plays a role of a 'large-scale air purifier' that sucks fine dust in the air and filters it out,” the news agency states. The plant is also expected to produce hot water as a byproduct that could be effectively utilized by over 44,000 households as an alternative to expensive heating options provided by the companies. The plant will also purify fine dust emitted from the LNG (liquefied natural gas) thermal power plant at the Shinincheon Bitdream headquarters.