SK Ecoplant Completes PF for Korea's Largest Commercial Data Center

Total Project Cost Approximately 1 Trillion KRW
Joint Development with Singapore Data Center Platform Company DigitalEdge
SK Ecoplant Stakeholding 49%

SK ecoplant announced on the 27th that it has successfully completed project financing (PF) following the commencement of the first phase of the ‘Bupyeong Data Center Joint Development’ project.

Perspective view of Bupyeong Data Center (SEL2) Phase 1 project. (Provided by SK Ecoplant)

The ‘Bupyeong Data Center Joint Development’ project is a collaboration between SK ecoplant and Singapore-based Digital Edge to build the largest commercial hyperscale data center in South Korea, with a capacity of 120MW, located in the National Industrial Complex in Cheongcheon-dong, Bupyeong-gu, Incheon. SK ecoplant and Digital Edge hold equity stakes of 49% and 51%, respectively, and the project is being carried out in two phases. The total project cost is approximately 1 trillion KRW. Upon completion, the official name will be ‘SEL2’.

The two companies formalized the project last year and established a Special Purpose Company (SPC) to proceed with the development. The first phase began construction in January and aims for completion and service launch in 2024. Recently, they also successfully secured project financing worth about 440 billion KRW.

The Bupyeong Data Center will be the first in South Korea to install a 330kW Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) to be used as an auxiliary power source. Fuel cells are distributed power sources that can produce electricity stably while reducing carbon emissions. SK ecoplant has been actively engaged in the fuel cell business since 2018, building a value chain across all fuel cell sectors and expanding its presence in both domestic and international power generation and commercial fuel cell markets.

Digital Edge is a data center platform company headquartered in Singapore, established in 2020 with the goal of innovating digital infrastructure across Asia. It currently develops and operates data centers with a total capacity of 500MW across six Asian countries: South Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and India. In South Korea, it operates data centers in Seoul and Busan.

Song Young-gyu, Head of SK ecoplant’s Eco Space BU, said, "Through this project, we have laid the foundation for the successful transition to a data center developer as well as the development of a ‘green data center’ business model by applying fuel cell power generation. We will successfully complete this project and continue to actively expand advanced data center businesses in close cooperation with Digital Edge."

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