Press Release

Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction is planning to strengthen the local industry-academia-research collaboration framework that is in place for gas turbine development and is endeavoring to step up the efforts for hydrogen gas turbine development.

On December 19th, Doosan announced that a ceremony had been held on the 17th of this month to celebrate the certification of the “Doosan Gas Turbine Research Lab for Next Generation Technology Cooperation,” which was jointly held with local universities that had contributed to the technology development efforts for the local manufacturing of gas turbines. The ceremony took place at the company’s Changwon headquarters and was attended by Hongook Park, CEO of Doosan Heavy’s Power Services Business Group; Jeong-rak Son, Energy Managing Director of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy(MOTIE)’s Office of Strategic R&D Planning and professors from some ten local university laboratories.

The ten or so university labs that were selected that day, which included Inha University, Seoul National University and Changwon National University, had recorded outstanding accomplishments in the development of key technology for gas turbine compressors, combustors, turbines and thermal fluids, and had effectively cooperated on the development of Korea’s first gas turbine. Doosan awarded the Outstanding Research Award to the head researchers of the R&D initiatives, among which were Seungyoung Choi of Yonsei University, Gimun Kim of Korea Aerospace University and Taesong Lee of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology(KAIST).

“Owing to the active cooperation shown by the university labs that were selected today, as well as that of other numerous institutions, we were able to successfully complete performance testing on Korea’s first gas turbine for power generation,” said Hongook Park, CEO of Doosan Heavy’s Power Services BG. He added, “During this process, we were able to secure the base technology and competitiveness in local gas turbine development, and we also managed to build a virtuous cycle enabling the continuous cultivation of skilled talents.”

Doosan has completed the development of the gas turbine that was pursued as an interim project during the development of a hydrogen-fueled turbine. The company recently completed performance testing of the initial sample product that is to be supplied to Korea Western Power’s Gimpo Combined Heat & Power(CHP) Plant. The initial product will be installed at the power plant in the first half of next year and will undergo a demonstration run.

Ever since the South Korean government announced the “Upwardly Revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) for 2030” this past October, the turbines fueled by zero carbon-emitting hydrogen are forecasted to show a most rapid growth. Doosan signed a MoU with five public power companies this year on pursuing cooperation in the field of hydrogen gas turbines and is expediting the development and demonstration of the hydrogen gas turbine. The company plans to continuously visit the labs of local universities to further build up on the industry-academia-research collaboration framework and will also be continuing with the cooperation on hydrogen gas turbine development and cultivation of talented resources.

▲At the “Doosan Gas Turbine Research Lab for Next Generation Technology Cooperation” certification ceremony, which was held at the Changwon headquarters on Dec. 17th, Hongook Park, CEO of Doosan Heavy’s Power Services BG (sixth from the left); Jeong-rak Son, Energy Managing Director of the MOTIE’s Office of Strategic R&D Planning (seventh from the left) and professors from the local universities pose for a group photo.