GS EPS, an affiliate of GS Group, completed the construction of a bio-mass power plant, the largest in Asia. A ceremony was held to mark the occasion at the Bukok Industrial Complex in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, on Sept. 11. A slew of dignitaries attended, led by GS Group Chairman Huh Chang-soo and Chairman Hur Dong-soo of GS Caltex.
The bio-mass power plant with the capacity to produce 105 Mw of electricity per hour is good enough to supply power to 110,000 homes. The company kicked off the construction of the power plant in May 2013 with a 300 billion won investment.
Chairman Huh said GS EPS will manage the largest bio-mass power plant in Asia and looks forward to advancing into the global bio-mass power plant market with the accumulated know-how from the new power plant.
Bio-mass includes sawdust, seaweed, sugar beets, tree bark and rice plants, which are made to generate electricity or energy when they go through fermentation and decomposition. Bio-mass power generation has been getting global attention as it is environmentally friendly.
Four bio-mass power plants, including the one built by GS EPS, are in operation in Korea. Only the one built by GS EPS is big enough to generate more than 105 Mw of power/hour. Three others are being operated by Korea East-West Power Co., Korea Midland Power Co. and Chonju Paper Co., with each generating less than 100 Mw of power an hour.
The plant at the Bukok Industrial Complex Bio-mass power plants uses the peels of pineapples mainly to generate power. They are put into specially designed boilers to generate steam, which is used to turn the gas turbines to generate power. The bio-mass power plant produces less carbon in the process of generating power than the power plants using liquefied gas and coal to produce power.
Officials of GS EPS said they plan to import 400,000 tons of pineapple peels from Southeast Asian countries annually and they plan to expand their environmentally friendly projects from now.
Chairman Huh decided to gamble with environmentally friendly power plants late in the 2000s as they include new recycled energy, solar energy, solar heat, fuel battery, wind power, tidal power, hydrogen power, wave power and bio-mass.
The new recycled energy power plants expanded rapidly in Europe and North America from the late 2000s, but stalled since the global financial crisis in 2007 with the investments in the sector getting reduced rapidly.
But not Huh. He continued to keep pushing the bio-mass power plant projects, believing that environmentally friendly power plants have excellent future. In 2012, the energy sector was split from GS Co. to operate independently named as GS Energy to pursue environment friendly energy projects such as new recycled energy and replacement energy as one of the GS Group’s future growth engines.
Huh always said you have to have your own strategy for reform faster and different from others, not copying them all the time to be a top corporate leader in the world. Also important for a business firm is to make its existing businesses reborn by mixing new technologies to them with its own creative new ideas so that they can produce new products with the fusion technologies.
GS Group is a South Korean conglomerate. GS comprises GS Holdings, subsidiaries & affiliates including GS Caltex, GS Retail, GS Shop, GS EPS, GS Global, GS Sports and GS E&C among others. The group has asset of 31.1 trillion won as of the end of 2007 placing it at the 6th largest in Korea excluding the public business companies.
GS Holdings was incorporated in 2004 and officially split from LG Group in 2005, with the Koo family gaining full control over LG Group and the Huh family creating GS Holdings. In December 2005, the company acquired 70 percent of the shares of GS EPS Co., Ltd. (formerly LG Energy Co., Ltd.) from GS E&C Corp. and LG International Corp.
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