LSIS Gets a Jump-start in Smart Grid Industry

Spins off its pipe and metals division and focuses on smart grid and other business areas

LS Industrial Systems (LSIS) is accelerating its bid to get a jump-start in the emerging smart grid industry pursuant to the government’s plan to nurture the industry into one of the nation’s next-generation growth engines.
In the latest move, LSIS held a board of directors meeting on Feb. 18 and decided to spin off its pipe and metals division in a bid to reorganize its business portfolio into a structure focusing on smart grid and other industrial fields.
LSIS plans to strengthen its presence in such high value-added, mainstay business areas as Korea’s first wind power cables, underwater cables and super-conduction cables. In particular, the company is pinning high hopes on the exploration of the smart grid industry. Starting with its participation in the smart grid test-bed project on Jeju Island, LSIS plans to undertake power grid buildup projects in Korea and abroad. It is also striving to raise revenues from new business areas, including electric car parts. LSIS aims at elevating the portion of revenues from new business areas from about 1 percent to 30 percent by 2015. Maintaining its research on smart grid technologies in the name of electricity IT for the last decade, LSIS is putting its heart and soul into making a big splash in the fledgling industry under the Lee Myung-bak government’s low-carbon, green growth paradigm.
In fact, LSIS has been recognized for its technological prowess in the smart meter and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) fields. The company participated in Grid Week 2009 in Washington from Sept. 21-24 in order to make its way into the global smart meter and AMI markets. LSIS is working on a government-financed project to develop AMI with the KEPCO Research Institute during the period between June 2008 and May 2011. The company is in charge of overall details of the project including the development of smart meters and devices in response to consumer demand. The project calls for dramatically improving functions of smart meters so that electricity suppliers and clients can be engaged interactively through AMI in a seamless manner. For LSIS, electric and electronic sub assemblies (ESA) are an up-and-coming business area together with the smart grid area. In 2009, LSIS signed an MOU on ESA with Phoenix Motorcars of the United States and inked a similar deal with Leo Motors of Koreas in order to build a global business infrastructure. Electric cars being produced abroad will be fitted with parts supplied by LSIS. For instance, the battery disconnect unit (BDU) produced by LSIS is to be supplied to the next models of the Chevrolet Volt by General Motors.
LSIS has developed ultra-light, high-durability, differentiated products by making the most of its own core capabilities ― electricity and automation technology ― while carrying out a government-financed task project on G7 electric car ESAs that began in 1993. KSGA Chairman Ku Ja-kyun said in his opening session speech, “The smart grid is an innovative power grid for realizing the low-carbon, green growth paradigm, and energy efficiency can be enhanced by interactive telecommunications. Chances are high that the smart grid could emerge as Korea’s new growth engine industry.” He made the remark during the 2010 World Smart Grid Forum, jointly organized by the Korea Smart Grid Association (KSGA) and the Korea Smart Grid Institute in the COEX Grand Ballroom in Samseong-dong, Seoul, on Jan. 20-22.
Among the roughly 2,200 people on hand at the forum were KSGA Chairman Ku, concurrently vice chairman and CEO of LS Industrial Co.; KEPCO Chairman & CEO Kim Ssang-soo; and Kim Jung-kwan, deputy minister for energy resources development at the MKE.
Technologies in such areas as response to demand, smart grid telecommunication network, smart grid cyber security, smart grid standard/joint interoperability, infrastructure for charging electric cars and energy storage were presented during the forum.
Deputy MKE Minister Kim said in his speech, “A fierce wind of green is blowing around the world. In particular, the smart grid will be a watershed power grid that will have the potential to be a futuristic growth engine and revolutionize daily life and industries.”
Korea is quickly moving to nurture smart grid technology as a growth engine of the national economy in the next two to three decades, as the Korean shipbuilding, semiconductor and automobile industries have done. The government on Aug. 20 inaugurated the Smart Grid Business Corps, charged with initiating collaboration among industry, academia and research circles in building smart grid infrastructure.
A signboard-hanging ceremony to celebrate the inauguration of the Smart Grid Business Corps took place at the Green Power IT Center in Uwang, Gyeonggi Province, with about 40 dignitaries including Kim Jung-kwan, deputy minister for energy resources development at the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE); KEPCO Vice President Kim Moon-duck; Lee Joon-hyun, president of Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation & Planning; Yoo Tae-hwan, president of Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute; and Choi Jin-yong, president of Injin Electric. nw

LS Industrial Systems Vice Chairman Ku Ja-kyun, concurrently chairman of the Korea Smart Grid Association.