Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) has gained ground in its bid to attract tenant companies into the Bitgarm Energy Valley in the innovative city of Gwangju and Jeollanam-do as it has signed an agreement on investments with 25 companies, including LSIS and ABB Korea.

KEPCO said on Sept. 8 it signed a deal on investments into the Energy Valley with each of 25 Korean and foreign companies. The Energy Valley refers to the Naju, the innovative city of Gwangju and Jeollanam-do, and industrial complexes in its neighborhood Gwanju.

LSIS plans to invest a combined 60 billion won into the tentatively named Gwangju Urban Advanced Industrial Complex to build large-capacity energy storage systems (ESS) and photovoltaic power conversion system (PCS) testing and verification centers. The following second phase investment plan calls for investments into the high-voltage direct current (HVDC) sector. 

ABB, headquartered in Switzerland, is the sole multinational company of power and automation among the pack of investors. KEPCO agreed to cooperate in such new energy industries as high-voltage direct current, flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) and battery energy storage system (BESS). KEPCO and ABB Korea signed an initial agreement to open the “Front-End office”. In particular, ABB Korea agreed to explore ways of promoting cooperation with SMEs of the Energy Valley. The multinational company is expected to play a pivotal role in nurturing tenant SMEs of the Energy Valley, starts-up into so-called hidden champions. 

Twenty-five participants of the investment pack into the Energy Valley, include LSIS, a large-sized company, ABB Korea, a multinational company, electric materials distribution company Woojin M&E, SMEs and starts-up, will likely have energetic effects through creative collaboration and interdisciplinary technology convergence among the participating companies. Nineteen companies or 76 percent of the total participants specialize in new energy industries and electric ICT sectors, contributing to building the ecosystem of new energy industries at the Energy Valley, KEPCO said. 

The 25 late-comers bring to 57 the number of companies with which KEPCO has agreed to attract into the Energy Valley. The figure accounts for 57 percent of the 100 companies KEPCO aims to attract by 2016, showing that KEPCO’s bid to create the Energy Valley rolls. Nine companies, including DMI Systems, have been already moved into the Energy Valley, while seven companies, including Bosung Power, have agreed on purchasing site land. Out of 32 companies with which KEPCO has signed agreements during the first half of this year, 16 companies or half of the total have already moved into the Energy Valley or agreed to purchase land sites, indicating the tendency that many of the signatories have walked the walk. 

“Attracting 57 tenant companies into the Bitgarm Energy Valley is equivalent to more than 10 percent of the target of 500 companies KEPCO aims to attract by 2020, so the Energy Valley Project is likely to move on fast like a fuse catching fire,” KEPCO President Cho Hwan-eik said.

KEPCO said it doesn’t rest on achieving the target of attracting tenant companies into the Energy Valley. The company said it aims at rising to an energy global leader of the future by nurturing new energy industries that will lead an era of the creative economy and transforming the Energy Valley into a global energy industry center of energy companies and expertise manpower.