South Korea launches green H2 pilot project in Jeju

South Korea's industry and trade ministry (Motie) announced on 29 September the start-up of what it describes as the country's first large-scale hydrogen demonstration project in Jeju city.

The 12.5MW project, costing 62bn South Korean won ($43.3mn), will run until March 2026 and will be operated by state-controlled utility Korea Southern Power. The pilot project aims to demonstrate hydrogen production with all four existing hydrolysis systems using a high renewable energy ratio — alkaline electrolysis cell, polymer electrolyte membrane, solid oxide electrolysis cell and anion exchange membrane.

The project aims to produce 1,176 t/yr of hydrogen at a 60pc utilisation rate. This is in line with a government target to supply 100pc of hydrogen demand in 2050, or 27.9mn t, with clean hydrogen and expand its clean hydrogen self-sufficiency rate to over 60pc. The produced hydrogen will be supplied to 200 cleaning vehicles and 300 buses in Jeju.

Installed electrolysis capacity has to rise to 850GW by 2030 and 3,600GW by 2050 to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, according to the IEA.

"Jeju will be the first to achieve the government's renewable energy target of 21.5pc in 2030 and build a global green hydrogen hub based on this," said Jeju governor Oh Young-hun. "We will take the lead in the national hydrogen economy by building hydrogen ports and importing and converting hydrogen."

"The government will actively make efforts to overhaul and deregulate related systems in order to induce and support private investment in the hydrogen industry, including the introduction of the clean hydrogen power generation system in 2023 and the implementation of the clean hydrogen certification system in 2024," said Motie's second vice-minister Park Il-joon.

More capacity comes on line

South Korea has also launched the country's third hydrogen production base in Samcheok city's Gangwon province on 30 September, Motie said the same day.

The Samcheok plant is Gangwon's first such plant with shipping facilities and has a production capacity of 365 t/yr. Hydrogen produced will be supplied to the province's hydrogen refuelling stations through a shipping facility. The Samcheok production base comes after the Pyeongtaek base that launched in July and the Changwon plant that has been operating since the end of last year.

Gangwon does not have any by-product hydrogen production facilities, so Chungcheongnam province's Dangjin and Daesan cities have been supplying the province's eight hydrogen charging stations. But supplies have to travel up to 200km, resulting in "burdensome transportation costs", Motie said.

The Samcheok facility will be fully operational from mid-October onwards, with supplies sent to five hydrogen charging stations in the province each day.

Motie also plans to start operating all seven natural gas-based small-scale hydrogen production bases early next year. Future hydrogen production facilities will only include those that produce green hydrogen through hydrolysis, or blue hydrogen using carbon capture to achieve carbon neutrality.

"In the future the government plans to push ahead with the transition to the hydrogen economy without a hitch by upgrading infrastructure related to hydrogen storage and transportation," said Park.

By Tng Yong Li