Essential Industrial Equipment 'Inverter'... "Competing with High-Performance Domestic Products"

Wondongseok, CEO of Hyundai Motor Industry... From Consignment Sales to Direct Production
Supplying 5 Incineration Plants in 5 Years... Also Installed in Construction and Paper Mills
"Pioneering the Port Crane Market... No Technical Gap with German Products"

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Junhyung] An inverter is a device that converts the flow of electricity from direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC) to supply power to equipment. It efficiently controls the speed of electric motors to maximize performance relative to energy consumption. It functions like a "volume control for motors," and wherever there is a motor, an inverter is used regardless of scale or purpose. This means that in industrial sites requiring motors, inverters are considered essential equipment.

Hyundai Motor Industry is a rising new powerhouse in the inverter industry. The company originally started as a distributor selling motors and inverters manufactured by Hyundai Heavy Industries, but it is now recognized as a legitimate inverter manufacturer. The company is expanding its customer base with differentiated technology in a market dominated by imported inverters from Japan and Germany.

Inverter of Hyundai Motor Industry. [Photo by Hyundai Motor Industry]

Feeling the Limitations of Domestic Products... Joint Development with Domestic Researchers

The motivation to develop inverters came from Hyundai Heavy Industries. Won Dongsuk, CEO of Hyundai Motor Industry, realized the limitations of domestic equipment while distributing Hyundai Heavy Industries’ inverters. No matter how much they promoted, domestic inverters could not be installed in the core facilities of large corporations. Customer complaints were frequent due to the gap between the performance listed in product catalogs and the actual performance experienced on site. CEO Won explained, "Since the 1990s, we have made inverters with Hyundai Heavy Industries and LS Cable, but they were not used in automation equipment that requires high technical skills. Inverters require both hardware (HW) and software (SW) capabilities, but domestic products were weak on the software side."

Ultimately, CEO Won began developing inverters himself in 2013. He searched the industry and visited researchers at POSTECH who were working on motors and inverters. They united with the goal of domesticating inverters, which had a high import dependency. At that time, the researchers were conducting tests to smoothly switch a motor running at maximum speed in one direction to the opposite direction.

CEO Won got the idea of a "bidirectional inverter" from this. When a motor running at high speed stops, a large amount of heat is generated momentarily due to inertia. This is caused by resistance from friction between the motor and the brake. Typically, dozens of resistors are attached around the motor on site to absorb the heat. CEO Won said, "Motors in large cranes generate a lot of heat due to their size, so even a single brake application can make the electrical room very hot," adding, "Stopping and restarting the motor consumes a considerable amount of energy."

He devised an inverter that obtains power from the heat generated when the motor stops. The inverter, which operates electrically, also functions as a generator producing electricity. As a result, Hyundai Motor Industry’s inverter saves 30-40% more energy compared to existing imported products. All the resistors hanging around the motor were removed. Thanks to this technology, which played the role of the "top contributor," the company was able to compete on equal footing with formidable competitors such as Germany’s Siemens, Switzerland’s ABB, and Japan’s Mitsubishi in public tenders. CEO Won explained that bidirectional inverters can still only be made by Hyundai Motor Industry.

Hyundai Motor Industry's inverter applied to an auger drill at a local construction site in Japan.
[Photo by Hyundai Motor Industry]

Half the Price of Imported Products... Used in 70-80% of Construction Sites Nationwide

The customer base has steadily grown through word of mouth in the industry. The company first supplied inverters for cranes used in incineration plants in 2014. Within just 4-5 years, Hyundai Motor Industry’s inverters were used in five incineration plants nationwide, including Bucheon, Yongin, Gwangmyeong, and Ansan. This was due to competitiveness in energy efficiency, price, and after-sales service (A/S). The price is more than 50% cheaper than imported products, and there were no frequent malfunctions. CEO Won emphasized, "You can contact any incineration plant where our products are installed to verify the product’s completeness," adding, "There have been no malfunctions even in sites that have used our inverters for 5-6 years."

Hyundai Motor Industry’s customers can also be found throughout various industries. The construction and paper industries recognized the company’s products early on. 70-80% of auger drills used to bore the ground at construction sites nationwide contain Hyundai Motor Industry’s inverters. The company also supplied inverters to domestic paper manufacturers Asia Paper and Korea Paper factories. Next month, a newly developed gearless inverter will be installed at the Chong Kun Dang Bio factory. This device controls the motor solely with the inverter without a separate gear mechanism. CEO Won said, "One unit will be installed first for performance verification," and predicted, "After about two months of testing, it will be possible to supply 30-40 inverters."

The company’s next target is cranes used at ports. Inverters for cranes used at domestic ports such as Busan Port are virtually monopolized by Germany’s Siemens and Switzerland’s ABB. Inverters for large cranes require top-level technology among inverters. The core technology is to maintain constant force in the sections where the motor slows down and starts to accelerate. Otherwise, the crane can lose balance and collapse instantly, leading to major accidents. CEO Won stated, "In terms of technology alone, there is virtually no significant difference from Siemens and ABB now," and added, "We will emphasize low noise and energy savings to pioneer the port crane market as well."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.