Hyundai Engineering & Construction is expanding its hydrogen energy push from production facilities to storage infrastructure.
Hyundai Engineering & Construction said on the 1st it has been selected for the state-backed project "Technology development for liquid hydrogen storage tank and loading/unloading system," promoted by the Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement (KAIA) under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and will embark on developing a large-capacity liquid hydrogen storage tank. Liquefied hydrogen is hydrogen in a gaseous state cooled to minus 253 degrees to liquefy it, and storage tanks likewise require advanced insulation design and construction capability to maintain an ultra-low temperature state.
The project aims to secure core, full-cycle foundation technologies—such as storage, transfer, and unloading—for building liquid hydrogen receiving terminals in preparation for the spread of the hydrogen economy, and to link them through demonstration. In particular, as a preliminary task to develop Korea's first flat-bottom liquid hydrogen storage tank, it is expected to lay the technical groundwork to expand into a 50,000 ㎥-class large-capacity storage system. A flat-bottom liquid hydrogen storage tank is a cylindrical structure with a flat bottom; it is a storage facility with enhanced insulation and structural safety to stably store large-capacity liquid hydrogen at atmospheric (normal atmospheric pressure) or low pressure.
Government funding for the project is about 29 billion won, and the project period is 45 months from this month to Dec. 2029. Hyundai Engineering & Construction will work with 14 industry-academia-research institutions, including the Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS), the Korea Gas Technology Corporation (KOGAS-Tech), and the Korea Gas Safety Corporation (KGS), to participate in the design and construction of liquid hydrogen storage tanks and demonstration operations.
In addition, while advancing storage tank performance through ▲ building and standardizing metal material property databases ▲ developing structural and high-performance insulation design technologies ▲ securing structural/flow/heat transfer analysis technologies ▲ establishing design criteria, the company will also focus on reducing boil-off gas and securing safety technologies through the construction and demonstration operation of a 200 ㎥-class storage tank. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) plans to apply the outcomes of the national project to scale-up designs and use them for building liquid hydrogen terminals and commercializing storage facilities.
A Hyundai Engineering & Construction official said, "Although the hydrogen market at home and abroad is growing rapidly, the liquid hydrogen technology field—one of the key technologies to accelerate the transition to a hydrogen economy—remains in its infancy," and added, "If a flat-bottom storage tank is developed through this national project, it is expected to contribute not only to technological self-reliance in the liquefied hydrogen field, which had a high dependence on overseas sources, but also to strengthening the competitiveness of hydrogen infrastructure and plant businesses."