POWER August 2014 - 37

MARMADUKE AWARD
1. Capital workhorse. The liquefied natural gas-fueled Incheon Thermal Power Site has
been serving the Seoul metropolitan area since 1968. The new CCPP Unit 3 is visible as the
second set of stacks from the left. Courtesy: KOMIPO
tions. The need for new generation had not
changed, but a more cost-effective approach
needed to be found.
Faced with this dilemma, KOMIPO hit
upon the idea of moving the underused plant
at Boryeong to Incheon instead of building
an entirely new plant. No one had ever
attempted to move a power plant in South
Korea before, but doing so would cost substantially
less than a new one.
KOMIPO, KEPCO (which oversees the
KOMIPO's largest plant is at Boryeong,
with its flagship facility being the eight-unit,
4-GW Boryeong Thermal Power Plant, the
largest coal-fired plant in South Korea and
the nation's first ultrasupercritical plant (and
also a 2008 POWER Top Plant). There are
several smaller gas-fired plants at Boryeong,
as well as about 10 MW of hydro, solar photovoltaic
(PV), and fuel cell generation.
Boryeong, however, is a significant distance
from the capitol and its enormous power
demand. Much of the capital's power needs
are served by KOMIPO's Incheon Thermal
Power Site, which has been supplying Seoul
since the late 1960s (Figure 1). Originally a
four-unit 1,150-MW oil-fired thermal plant,
Incheon switched to liquefied natural gas
(LNG) in 1987 in response to the national
government's fuel diversification policy.
By the 2000s, however, the original units
at Incheon were nearing end-of-life. The 504MW
Incheon Combined Cycle Power Plant
(CCPP) Unit 1 was added in 2005, and when
the 509-MW CCPP Unit 2 was brought online
in 2009, the decision was made to retire and
dismantle thermal Units 3 and 4 while Units 1
and 2 received upgrades to extend their life a
few more years. But to retire those units would
mean adding new capacity to replace them.
Meanwhile, Boryeong CCPP Unit 4 was
experiencing significant operational issues
that were increasingly challenging its utilization.
The high cost of LNG and the long distance
to the capital demand center meant a low
spot in the dispatch order despite the national
power crunch. The plant was seeing capacity
factors around 46%, and projections suggested
this low utilization would continue to fall-
perhaps under 10%-as the plant aged and fell
behind newer, more efficient plants.
KOMIPO had proposed a new CCPP at
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Incheon as part of its input for the 4th Basic
Plan for Supply & Demand of Electric Power
(which took effect in 2008), and the national
government had approved the plan. But increases
in the price of LNG in 2009 caused
the government to reexamine its plans for
CCPP generation, and a new plant was likely
to cost significantly more than initial projecnational
grid), and the national government
conducted feasibility studies of the idea during
2009, and the data suggested that the
move would experience lower costs and
fewer difficulties than a new greenfield plant,
in part because of the opportunity to take advantage
of existing infrastructure. An added
plan to incorporate a new district heating system
would also meet local demands for heating
from expanding residential development
in the Incheon area.
The proposal garnered strong support
from the national and local governments.
The project was incorporated into the 5th
Basic Plan, and the national government
expedited the necessary permitting and approvals
in order to complete the project as
quickly as possible. Incheon Metropolitan
City also swiftly approved the project be

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