New power line to run near Seoul to ease chip complex power shortage concerns

Samsung Electronics’ Pyeongtaek Campus Complex [Photo provided by Samsung Electronics]

A power transmission line that will carry electricity generated along the west coast of South Chungcheong Province to the Seoul metropolitan area will open this year, six years after the construction project began in 2017.

According to sources on Thursday, the second phase of the project to construct an underground Buk Dangjin-Godeok high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line is scheduled to be completed in the latter half of this year. The HVDC transmission line spans approximately 34.2 kilometers from Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. The total project cost amounts to 1.16 trillion won ($913.58 million), and the transmission capacity upon completion will reach 3 gigawatts (GW), making it the largest HVDC project in the country.

The project has been carried out in two phases, with the first phase completed at the end of 2020.

When the second phase is completed, it is expected to provide stable power supply to the Pyeongtaek area, which has suffered a shortage of electricity supply due to demand as the country’s tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. has established semiconductor factories one after another.

In fact, Pyeongtaek’s energy load growth rate reached approximately 9 percent from 2014 to last year, which is three times higher than the national growth rate of 3 percent during the same period. This indicates that power demand in the region has increased significantly in recent years.

The economic benefits from the completion of the Buk Dangjin-Godeok HVDC are also expected to be significant.

According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the opening of the HVDC is estimated to generate 512 trillion won in production, 188 trillion won in added value and 1.48 million jobs at Samsung Electronics’ Pyeongtaek Campus Complex 1 (Lines 1~4).

While the power shortage in Pyeongtaek has been relieved, the industry believes that additional power supply is needed in southern Gyeonggi Province as a large semiconductor cluster is planned to be built in Yongin by 2050. The industry estimates that the Yongin semiconductor cluster will require more than 10 GW of power. which is equivalent to about a quarter of the total power demand in the metropolitan area

In response, the industry ministry held a meeting last week to prioritize the construction of a new power plant near the Yongin semiconductor cluster. This is because it takes a long time to build an additional transmission line. The ministry is considering various options, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) power generation for the envisioned power plant.