KEPCO Steps Up Presence
in Wind Power Projects

Power company reaches an agreement to build additional wind power plants in Inner Mongolia and Gansu Province


The Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) has agreed with Chinese power provider Datang International Power Generation Co. to construct additional wind power plants with a combined capacity of 99.5MW in Neimenggu, Inner Mongolia, and Gansu Province.
KEPCO has already built up its presence for expanding its wind power projects in two locations. In 2005, KEPCO launched a 49.3MW-class wind power project in Gansu Province. The following year, the Korean power company undertook an additional 139.4MW wind power project in Inner Mongolia.
The second phase 229.6MW project, completed in 2007 in Inner Mongolia, makes the area one of China's largest wind power production centers.
KEPCO? investments into the latest projects -- the second-phase 49.5MW wind power project in Gansu and the third-phase 50MW wind power project in Inner Mongolia -- brings KEPCO's total capacity in China to 517.8MW, which is 2.7 times Korea's total wind power capacity.
The latest projects will cost about $150 million, about two-thirds of which will be financed by China and foreign countries. KEPCO will shoulder $20 million, accounting for 40 percent of the needed paid-in capital in return for operating the wind power stations for 20 years.
They will be undertaken based on the Build, Own, Operate (BOO)-type project in which the Korean company will participate in the construction and operation of the planned wind power stations as the second-largest shareholder. The wind power plants, which are to be dedicated in December 2008, are rated to be excellent in terms of average wind speed and energy density, essential factors for assessing economic feasibility.
In particular, the latest projects are expected to cost less because they are to utilize the existing power transmission and distribution facilities of the power plants that are now in operation or are under construction.
The latest projects will be carried out simultaneously under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). KEPCO is expected to gain $6.16 million in CDM benefits -- $4.7 million from the existing projects and $1.46 million from the new ones -- stemming from lower greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.
KEPCO said on July 17 that it became the preferred bidder for the construction and operation of the Al Quatrana gas combined cycle plant, some 100 km south of Amman, the capital of Jordan. The $500 million project calls for the construction of a 373,000kW-class gas combined cycle plant in a BOO method and the operation of the plant for 25 years until 2035. KEPCO said it will ink a contract by May 2009 before the project breaks ground. The projected plant will go into commercial operation on Aug. 25, 2011.

BRISK OVERSEAS PROJECTS
KEPCO inked an MOU with Ukraine's ENERGOATOM on promoting cooperation in the design, launch, operation and technical servicing of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in September 2007. A six-member Ukrainian delegation, including Oleksandr Rybchuk, director general in charge of new business at ENERGOATOM, visited such Korean NPP-related companies as KHNP, KINS, Korea Nuclear Fuel Co. and Doosan Heavy Industries from Sept. 9-15, 2007.
KEPCO's signing of an MOU with ENERGOATOM is designed to materialize the collaboration between the two companies following an MOU inked between the Korean and Ukrainian governments in June 2007 when a Korean delegation visited Ukraine. nw

(right) Acting KEPCO Chairman and CEO Moon Ho
KEPCO ratchets up its presence in the wind power generation industry in China.