Bringing it Home
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) announced on June 25 that it has secured source technology for the localization of a 15MW Francis water turbine generator, which is a medium and large generating unit, for the first time in the country.
Accordingly, the country can now localize the medium and large generating unit, which was previously sourced from overseas.
KHNP, which has about 82 percent of the nation’s total hydroelectric power generation capacity, is leading water power technology development in the country. However, it is heavily dependent on overseas technologies to build most facilities, including Japan and Europe, due to a lack of domestic core technologies to build medium and large generating units.
Therefore, the KHNP has been pushing ahead with a national research project to develop Francis water turbine generators with a capacity of more than 10MW from June 2012 in order to secure core water power generation technology and localize facilities.
Currently, the company has completed the design of the main equipment including the 15MW Francis water turbine generators and control systems, and is in the process of producing a mock-up after the completion of a preliminary verification of technology development.
The localized 15MW Francis water turbine generator is planning to complete its verification test by May next year. Extending the use of such results in the future, the KHNP will complete the development and verification of a 30MW Francis water turbine generator by 2020, and localize its nine obsolete Francis water generators, which should be modernized.