Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, South Korea has started the 2025 bidding round for clean hydrogen power and general hydrogen power.
The clean hydrogen power bidding offers 3,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of power. This amount of electricity could supply about 850,000 households for a year. The contract period for these projects will be 15 years. Power plants selected through this process are expected to begin operations by 2029. A three-year preparation period will be given. Final bidder selection is planned for November 2025.
The ministry has added two new features to this year’s bidding process for clean hydrogen. These include an exchange rate-linked settlement system and a hydrogen volume borrowing system. These changes were introduced based on requests from companies in the hydrogen energy sector.
For general hydrogen power, the total bidding volume is 1,300 GWh. The contract period for these projects will be 20 years. Power generation must begin by 2027. Selected bidders will have two years to prepare. Final bidder selection for this category is expected in August 2025.
In addition to these two national-level projects, other smaller hydrogen and renewable energy developments are being worked on in the country. One example is a public-private initiative launched in South Jeolla Province in 2024. This included a pilot hydrogen fuel cell system installed in a rural town, with a capacity of 1.5 megawatts. The project was developed by a local energy startup in collaboration with a provincial research center.
In Gangwon Province, a small hybrid renewable energy project is combining solar and hydrogen fuel cells. This facility has a capacity of 2 megawatts for solar generation and 1 megawatt for hydrogen backup. The project supplies electricity to local farms and stores excess power in hydrogen storage units for later use.
The hydrogen sector in South Korea continues to see gradual expansion, including both utility-scale projects and smaller distributed generation systems. These newer programs aim to diversify the energy mix while increasing the share of hydrogen-based electricity in the country.
