Hyosung Heavy Industries builds test facility for 2-gigawatt HVDC controller
Hyosung Heavy Industries workers conduct a test drive for a 2-gigawatt high-voltage direct current controller. Courtesy of Hyosung Heavy Industries
Hyosung Heavy Industries, the power equipment and grid infrastructure unit of Korean conglomerate Hyosung Group, has built a facility to test the performance of its 2-gigawatt high-voltage direct current (HVDC) controller, marking a first for Korea using homegrown technology, the company said Thursday.
The hardware-in-the-loop simulation system, recently installed at the company's research center in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, links an actual HVDC controller to a simulated 2-gigawatt converter valve and power grid. This lets engineers check how the controller responds under conditions close to those of a real grid, the company said.
HVDC technology converts alternating current into direct current to carry large amounts of electricity over long distances with less power loss.
A 2-gigawatt system requires two to three times as many test scenarios, such as grid faults and emergencies, as a 200-megawatt one, according to the company.
The simulator can reproduce hazardous situations that are difficult to test on a live grid and run them repeatedly over long periods, it said.
Hyosung said it drew on experience from a 200-megawatt voltage-source HVDC system it developed and has operated since 2024 at Yangju Substation, north of Seoul. The company began developing the technology with a 20-megawatt demonstration project on Jeju Island in 2012.
High-capacity voltage-source HVDC has been led by a small number of global companies, it said. In September, Hyosung was selected as a participant in the valve and controller segment of a Korea Electric Power Corp. project to localize and demonstrate the technology.
The company said it plans to use the facility to raise the reliability of its gigawatt-class system as it pursues work on the West Coast Energy Highway, a government-backed plan to build HVDC lines along the country's west coast.
"Beyond simply securing a test facility, this is meaningful in that we now have our own technological base to further advance the 2-gigawatt HVDC controller we developed," a company official said.
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.