To Produce Steel Sheets Used for Electric Vehicles
POSCO will invest 1 trillion won to build a plant that can produce 300,000 tons of non-oriented electrical steel annually. Electrical steel sheets are used to produce drive motors for electric vehicles.
The new factory is expected to be built in Gwangyang from next year. Currently, POSCO can produce around 100,000 tons of non-oriented electrical steel annually. When the planned plant is completed in 2025, its production capacity will be expanded to 400,000 tons a year.
Electrical steel comes in two types -- oriented electrical steel used for transformers and non-oriented electrical steel used for motors and generators. Non-oriented electrical steel for drive motors significantly reduces power loss and increases mileage, so it is used for automobiles and home appliances. The new non-oriented electrical steel factory will churn out steel plates to be used for driving motors of eco-friendly vehicles.
The new plant will allow POSCO to produce a wider range of products than before, including plates with a wider width, high-efficiency plates with a thickness of 0.3mm or thinner and products with various coating characteristics. Therefore, the company will be able to respond to various demands. This is expected to cut social greenhouse gas emissions by about 840,000 tons per year.