POWER October 2012 - 48

TOP PLANTS
Yeongheung Power Station Unit 3,
Yeongheung Island, South Korea
Owner/operator: Korea Southeast Power Co.
The insatiable power demands of a huge modern metropolitan area
like Seoul call for both big thinking and flexibility. The successful launch
of this large, state-of-the-art supercritical coal plant required adapting
to unforeseen changes in fuel supply while meeting highly restrictive
environmental controls. The resulting high-availability facility is a POWER
Top Plant.
By Thomas W. Overton, JD
Courtesy: Korea Southwest Power Co.
S
outh Korea's booming economy over
the past several decades has dramatically
improved the standard of living
in this nation of 50 million people. But, as in
many other countries in East Asia, electrical
generation and transmission have struggled
to keep up with demand. The problems are
especially acute in the region around the capital.
The Seoul metropolitan area accounts for
41% of the nation's total electricity consumption
but only 24% of total generation, meaning
a large percentage of Seoul's electricity
must be imported from elsewhere. The cost
of this long-distance transmission has been
estimated at around $5 million per year.
To meet demand, South Korea has been
adding capacity at a rapid pace, more than
doubling its total since the late 1990s. Though
it has ambitiously pursued nuclear energy
48
as a component of the mix (see the Global
Monitor in the April 2012 issue of POWER),
about two-thirds of its capacity is thermal,
mostly coal-fired.
Korea Southeast Power Co.'s (KOSEP's)
Yeongheung Power Station is located on
Yeongheung Island, about 40 kilometers
from Seoul. KOSEP, one of five companies
spun off from the Korea Electric Power
Corp. (KEPCO) in 2001 as part of the restructuring
of the Korean power industry,
began the project in 1999. The 800-MW
Units 1 and 2 began commercial operation
in 2004. These supercritical once-through,
one-pass type boiler units were selected as
a 2005 POWER Top Plant.
Despite the critical need for new capacity
in the area, phase one of the Yeongheung
project encountered substantial opposition
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from local and environmental groups, up to
and including blockades of the site entrance
and interference with construction. The plan
to build high-voltage takeaway lines over
the sea (because of geographical restrictions
inherent in the island location) was a particular
sticking point. Unraveling the opposition
took years of negotiation and public
outreach.
The second phase of the project comprised
Units 3 and 4. However, this phase would encounter
its own series of obstacles.
Units 1 and 2 had used T91 steel for the
boiler tubes, which had experienced numerous
instances of tube rupture near the superheater.
The boiler operating conditions
are 3,500 psia, 1,050F main steam and 590
psig, 1,100F reheat steam. Careful study of
these incidents eventually showed them to be
POWER | October 2012
http://www.powermag.com
POWER October 2012

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