Riding the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, power demand from data centers is surging, boosting the chances that Korean corporations making gas turbines and Hydrogen Fuel Cells will benefit. With concerns about power shortages and grid bottlenecks, big U.S. tech corporations are turning to natural gas generation and Hydrogen Fuel Cells that can supply electricity directly near data centers.
On the 20th, according to the energy industry, Doosan Enerbility said on the 17th that it won an additional gas turbine order in the United States. Doosan Enerbility signed a contract to supply three 380MW-class gas turbines to a big U.S. tech company. Doosan Enerbility will supply gas turbines and generators to the data center this corporation is building. One unit will be in 2027 and two in 2028.
Doosan Enerbility also won an order for two 380MW-class gas turbines from a U.S. big tech company in Oct. Before that, Doosan Enerbility had supplied gas turbines only to domestic power plants. Doosan Enerbility plans to supply this company with gas turbines by the end of next year.
Gas turbines are key equipment used in power generation facilities. They combust natural gas or hydrogen to create high-temperature, high-pressure gas that drives a generator. Doosan Enerbility has produced large gas turbines in the 270MW to 380MW class and supplied them to domestic power plants. Now it has begun to enter the U.S. market.
This is thanks to big U.S. tech corporations moving to secure a "self-generation system," a so-called distributed power source, that does not rely on the existing grid. Many big tech corporations aim to build their own natural gas power plants near data centers to procure electricity.
For example, xAI, the AI company led by Elon Musk, Tesla's chief executive officer (CEO), has built a power plant using dozens of gas turbines over the past year at a data center in Memphis, Tennessee, to generate electricity. xAI also plans to build a natural gas power plant in Mississippi.
OpenAI plans to install 10 natural gas power plants with a capacity of 361 megawatts (MW) at the Stargate data center in Texas to receive power. Meta also decided to equip a 200MW self-generation plant at its data center in Ohio.
Only five corporations worldwide can make gas turbines: GE Vernova of the United States, Siemens of Germany, Mitsubishi Power of Japan, Ansaldo of Italy, and Korea's Doosan Enerbility. As AI growth drives more self-generation plants and demand for gas turbines rises, Doosan Enerbility could see more opportunities.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects that most of the electricity for new data centers in the United States over the next 10 years will be covered by natural gas power plants. But because GE Vernova, Siemens, and Mitsubishi Power, dominant players in gas turbines, the key component of natural gas plants, are unlikely to handle the entire volume, orders may spill over to latecomer Doosan Enerbility.
A Doosan Enerbility official said, "We plan to expand the gas turbine production capacity at the Changwon plant from eight units per year to 12 by 2028."
Corporations related to Hydrogen Fuel Cells, such as Doosan Fuel Cell, SK ecoplant, and HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, are increasingly likely to benefit from AI-driven power shortages. A Hydrogen Fuel Cell is a power generation system that produces electricity and heat through the electrochemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen.
Unlike batteries, Hydrogen Fuel Cells can produce electricity without recharging as long as hydrogen is supplied. With an operating rate around 95%, they can generate power stably around the clock.
Above all, the short manufacturing and installation period is cited as an advantage, enabling power supply within a year of ordering. Considering that it typically takes more than four years to install transmission and distribution networks to receive power from the existing grid, it means electricity can be secured faster.
A Doosan Fuel Cell official said, "It usually takes about a year and six months to build a data center, and Hydrogen Fuel Cell deployment can match that timeline," adding, "The basic model of a 440KW Hydrogen Fuel Cell fits in a single 40-foot container, so the installation footprint is small and expansion is easy."
Doosan Fuel Cell has commercialized Hydrogen Fuel Cells and built the Busan Green Energy and Daesan Hydrogen Fuel Cell power plants in 2020. It also invested about 155 billion won in the first half of this year alone in cooperation with Ceres Power in the United Kingdom, establishing 50MW of production facilities.
SK ecoplant installed Hydrogen Fuel Cells at the Bupyeong data center. The Bupyeong data center uses Hydrogen Fuel Cells as a backup power source.
HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering invested 140 billion won in July last year to launch HD Hydrogen, a Hydrogen Fuel Cell-focused subsidiary. HD Hydrogen acquired Convion, a global corporation in fuel cell systems, for 72 million euros and is accelerating commercialization of Hydrogen Fuel Cells.