KOPEC Leading World's Nuclear
Design Industry
- Technology Competitiveness and Experiences Enable Dream Come True

Undoubtedly, Korea Power Engineering Co. (KOPEC) has been recognized as the best engineering service company in Korea, designing nuclear power plants and fossil power plants as an architect engineer. It performs technical central role in the power industry by producing all the necessary information on engineering, procurement, construction management and start-up.
Founded in 1975, KOPEC has established its firm position in the domestic power industry with world-class technologies and capable human resources. It not only leads its technology associated with standard 500MW fossil-fired plants, 800MW class coal-fired plants and combined cycle plants, but also ranks with technically developed countries such as the United States, France, and Canada in the international market of nuclear plants by developing its own model of Korean standard nuclear plant, dubbed as Optimized Power Reactor 1000 (OPR1000). KOPEC is now focusing on doing away with the barriers in its way to the international market by endeavoring to localize the design programs and to develop design optimization technology with a goal of enhancement of design technology.
In parallel with above activity, KOPEC is promoting to expand its project scope to the environmental and general construction activities based upon its power plant construction technology. KOPEC is securing the base to step in the new market at home and abroad by developing original technology of business diversification.
Above all KOPEC is striving for positive encounter with the environmental changes and for enhancement of financial and technical competitiveness. KOPEC has set its premier goal of impressing the clients by realizing the utmost engineering technology.
KOPEC's first really meaningful participation in nuclear power projects started from Kori Units 3&4, each rated for 950 MWe. KOPEC worked with Becthel in this project and performed the onshore engineering design, procurement, construction supervision, field design and quality surveillance work.

Improvement of technological capability
Subsequent to Kori 3&4, KOPEC's participation in nuclear power projects continued through Yonggwang (YGN) 1&2 and Ulchin (UCN) 1&2. During this period KOPEC gained and accumulated valuable experiences and significantly improved the engineering capability which eventually allowed KOPEC to independently carry out engineering and design work of a nuclear project and finally became the prime architect engineering (A/E) contractor for YGN 3&4 in 1987.

Technological independence
The technical capability, experience and self-confidence gained from successfully performing the YGN 3&4 work as a primary A/E contractor laid down the technical foundation for independently completing the OPR1000 design of UCN 3&4 in 1991. At the same time, KOPEC successfully worked with AECL of Canada for Wolsong Units 2, 3 and 4.

Consolidation of NSSS Design Work
In 1997, KOPEC made another leap forward when the engineering design group of the Nuclear Steam Supply System (NSSS) was separated from the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and merged into KOPEC. It made KOPEC a truly full-fledged integrated engineering company capable of carrying out a complete design of a nuclear power plant for both BOP systems as well as the NSSS. As for the reactor system design, KOPEC jointly designed YGN 3&4 with CENP of Westinghouse. The NSSS of UCN 3&4 and all subsequent plants were independently designed by KOPEC-NSSS and the UCN 3&4 design became the model for the OPR1000 design as pointed out earlier. Currently, KOPEC-NSSS is carrying out the NSSS design of YGN 5&6 and UCN 5&6 with a goal of improving the OPR1000 design further by incorporating design and operating experience feedbacks from the operating plants.

Competitiveness and Technology Advances
One of the most important tasks that KOPEC completed for the nuclear power industry of our country was the development of the design. The design is specifically customized to be suitable for domestic nuclear power operating environment such as Korean topography, technology advances and economical considerations. Because of these factors, the OPR1000 design has been recognized by the nuclear industry and selected as the reference design for the light-water reactor construction project in North Korea, the KEDO project. KOPEC is leading the project by providing the A/E design services work for the design of the NSSS as well as BOP systems.For the advancement of the nuclear power plant design technology in Korea, KOPEC has been working on a conceptual design of a 1400 MWe pressurized light water reactor power plant with greater capacity, higher stability and safety, and more economical power plant. The project is called the Korean Next Generation Reactor (APR1400) project. nw