SK Group Aiming to Become World's No. 1 Hydrogen Player

SK Group has set up a blueprint for a hydrogen economy. Its goal is to invest about 18 trillion won over the next five years and become the world's No. 1 hydrogen player. To this end, the group established a hydrogen business promotion team at the end of 2020. It has formed a hydrogen alliance with Hyundai Motor, POSCO and Hyosung groups and will launch a hydrogen business consultative body in September this year.

Hydrogen is a key area of ESG management pursued by SK Group. It is also an area where the group can best demonstrate its accumulated energy business capabilities.

SK is preparing to build the world's largest hydrogen production base to prepare an ecosystem for a hydrogen economy. It plans to supply a total of 280,000 tons of eco-friendly hydrogen by building the world's largest liquefied hydrogen plant by 2023 and a clean hydrogen production base that removes carbon dioxide by 2025. It also set a goal of targeting Asian hydrogen markets such as China and Vietnam as well as Korea.

To this end, SK E&S, an energy subsidiary of SK Group, is planning to build a liquefied hydrogen production base by investing about 500 billion won in a bio and father hydrogen production cluster in Incheon City by 2023. The 30,000 tons of liquefied hydrogen supplied by SK is the amount needed for 75,000 Nexo hydrogen cars to travel around the world at the same time.

The 250,000-ton production base for clean hydrogen is near Boryeong LNG Terminal. About 5.3 trillion won will be invested in building a clean hydrogen production base by 2025.

SK is also continuing to invest in global hydrogen businesses in order to expand its hydrogen portfolio. In January, SK Inc. and SK E&S invested 800 billion won in Plug Power, a U.S. hydrogen company. Plug Power is a company that has technology that produces hydrogen by putting electricity into water and liquefied hydrogen plant technology.

On June 3, SK Inc. invested in Monolith, a U.S. green hydrogen company that uses renewable electricity to convert natural gas to hydrogen and carbon black. SK Inc. has secured a seat on Monolith's board of directors as a major investor.

SK is planning to invest in establishing a distribution system for eco-friendly hydrogen along with hydrogen production. It is planning to establish a value chain that can produce, distribute, and consume hydrogen through this process. SK plans to supply 80,000 tons of liquefied hydrogen annually by running 100 hydrogen charging stations nationwide by 2025 and supply 200,000 tons of hydrogen annually via dedicated pipelines by constructing a 400-megawatt fuel cell-based power plant.