Doosan Enerbility will soon be carrying out its first overseas export of gas turbines. The provision of Doosan’s homegrown gas turbines to the United States, a global leader of gas turbines, marks a significant milestone for the Korean power sector.
The company signed an agreement with a prominent U.S. technology company to provide two units of Doosan’s 380 MW gas turbines. The two gas turbines are to be delivered by Doosan Enerbility by the end of next year. Doosan Enerbility’s Houston-based U.S. subsidiary, Doosan Turbomachinery Services (DTS), also contributed to the recent contract win.
By winning this contract, Doosan Enerbility secured its first overseas export deal for its gas turbines. In 2019, Doosan Enerbility had in collaboration with parties from the domestic industry, academia and research sectors succeeded in the local manufacturing of a large-scale gas turbine for power generation, making it the fifth in the world to successfully obtain its own gas turbine technology. A demonstration run of over 15,000 hours was then conducted at the Gimpo Combined Heat & Power Plant, through which the performance was verified. This was followed by the successive securing of supplier agreements for a total of eight gas turbines, which is leading to the expansion of the gas turbine business.
The surge in data centres’ electricity demand, driven by AI, played a key part in this recent contract win. As data centres around the world are facing difficulties in meeting the surging electricity demand with the existing power grid, they are all searching for a new source of energy. It was during this search that gas turbines started gaining attention, specifically due to the advantages they offered in terms of construction lead time, stability of electricity supply, rapid start-up and operating efficiency. Doosan Enerbility, which has its own suite of locally developed gas turbine models, is actively working to expand this area of business.
