SK eternix, a renewable energy specialist, said on the 14th that it began commercial operation of "Paju Eco Green," built in Nakha-ri, Tanhyeon-myeon, Paju, Gyeonggi Province, and achieved 200MW (megawatts) in cumulative fuel cell operating capacity.
Paju Eco Green is an eco-friendly, high-efficiency fuel cell power facility built by SK eternix with an investment of about 224 billion won. It is a high-efficiency solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) power plant with an installed capacity of 31MW. It is equipped with 94 fuel cells rated at 330kW (kilowatts) from Bloom Energy, a U.S. renewable energy company, and can produce about 258GWh (gigawatt-hours) of electricity annually. That is enough electricity to power about 81,000 households for one year.
Fuel cells have relatively small fluctuations in output by weather and time of day, and can stably generate power near demand centers. That means they can reduce dependence on large sites and long-distance transmission networks. As power demand soars with countries accelerating construction of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and industrial complexes, they are also drawing attention as distributed power sources to meet that demand.
SK eternix is expanding beyond projects based on the renewable portfolio standard (RPS) into projects awarded in the hydrogen fuel cell power market (HPS). It is currently building two HPS business sites (28MW), and the industry expects total operating capacity to reach 228MW upon completion.