[K-Industry, Future Architects] Doosan Gas Turbine’s 20-Year Perseverance Bears Fruit: Leading the AI Power Era with Technological Independence

(8) Sang Eon Lee, Executive Director of Power Service BG Gas Turbine Design, Doosan Enerbility


Participated from the early development stage in 2006

Withstood pressure from Japanese companies

Chairman Park Ji-won provided full support with a 1 trillion won investment

A historic milestone in securing energy security

Accelerating efforts to lead the eco-friendly fuel market

Editor's NoteThe landscape of Korea's industries is undergoing rapid change. Even amid the turbulence of the global market, there are next-generation researchers and engineers quietly building tomorrow. They are the lifeblood of the Korean economy and the true protagonists who will sustain the future of Korea. The Asia Business Daily is launching an interview series, "K-Industry, Future Architects," to highlight the innovative technological world and future visions of these individuals. The eighth featured guest is Sang Eon Lee, Executive Director of Power Service BG Gas Turbine (GT) Design at Doosan Enerbility, who has successfully localized the gas turbine industry—once completely lacking core technologies in Korea—and has boldly challenged the stage long dominated by the world's top three companies.

Large-scale gas turbines for power generation are called the “crown jewel of mechanical engineering,” requiring even greater precision than aircraft jet engines. They are an advanced concentration of technology, engineered to withstand combustion gases exceeding 1,500 degrees Celsius and survive ultra-high temperatures and pressures. Until the early 2010s, Korean companies were merely manufacturers without core technology in this sector.

Sang-eon Lee, Executive Director in charge of Gas Turbine (GT) Design at Doosan Enerbility, is explaining the gas turbine to a reporter through a model. Photo by Dongju Yoon

In 2019, Doosan Enerbility completely realized large-scale gas turbines using domestic technology, fundamentally shifting the landscape of the global power generation market. The company confidently challenged the stage that had long been monopolized by the global “Big Three”—GE, Siemens, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). Having secured fully domestic and proprietary technology, Doosan achieved its first export to the U.S. last year, supplying a core power unit for a data center. To date, the company has secured contracts for a total of 23 units, including 12 for the U.S. market, and continues to make steady progress.

Sang Eon Lee, Executive Director of Power Service BG Gas Turbine (GT) Design at Doosan Enerbility, who has been a key figure in the birth and commercialization of Doosan’s “K-Gas Turbine” since the early development stages in 2006, told The Asia Business Daily in an interview at Doosan Tower in Bundang, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on June 19, “Achieving large-scale gas turbines for power generation with independent technology is not just a technical breakthrough—it is a historic milestone that means Korea has secured energy security on its own in competition with overseas original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).”

Without proprietary technology, a nation’s electricity supply itself can be at the mercy of foreign companies. Lee said, “Foreign OEMs often escape liability by simply paying the contractually capped compensation (usually 10% of the contract amount) even if a problem with the gas turbine threatens to paralyze the entire plant.” He added, “Although more than 160 foreign-made gas turbines are operating domestically, there have been several occasions when, upon requesting technical experts for maintenance or parts replacement, companies would use excuses such as COVID-19 or white list issues to delay support, forcing power plants to shut down.”

The journey to secure core technology, however, was fraught with challenges. In 2013, Doosan attempted to acquire Italy’s Ansaldo, a company with core technology, but the deal was ultimately blocked due to opposition from local politicians reluctant to let national technology be transferred to an Asian company. When Korea subsequently began domestic development as a government-backed project, Mitsubishi of Japan, which had a licensing agreement with Doosan at the time, tried to pressure Doosan into abandoning independent development by offering a license for its latest model.

Sangun Lee, Executive Director in charge of Gas Turbine (GT) design at Doosan Enerbility, is posing in front of a gas turbine model. Photo by Dongju Yoon

Despite such adversity, the steadfast support for the gas turbine business was driven by the determination of Doosan Enerbility Chairman Park Ji-won. Doosan invested more than 1 trillion won—a truly astronomical sum—into gas turbine development. Especially during periods when sales plummeted due to nuclear and coal phase-out policies, and the company came under the management of the Korea Development Bank, the very survival of the business was at stake. There was widespread speculation that, under a professional management system, the gas turbine development would have been immediately scrapped amid pressure for short-term results and restructuring.

Lee said, “I may be the person who has spent the most money at Doosan while executing R&D budgets at that time. Even during the most difficult days under creditor supervision, Chairman Park never cut a single won from the gas turbine budget, approving the entire amount and ensuring that development staff were fully supported so they could focus on their work.” He added, “Without the Chairman’s decisive leadership and unceasing investment at that time, we would not have been able to fully seize today’s boom in AI data center power demand.”

Although Doosan Enerbility is catching up quickly in gas turbine technology, there remains an objective performance gap compared to the global Big Three, who have decades of reference. While global competitors are selling their latest 430–440 megawatt (MW) class models, Doosan's mainstay is a 380 MW-class model. Doosan is overcoming this latecomer disadvantage with overwhelming service differentiation. Lee pointed out, “Foreign companies set up tents inside power plants to conduct maintenance, strictly conceal technical information, work for dozens of days, and then simply hand over a report and a bill worth tens of billions of won, maintaining an overbearing attitude throughout.”

Lee Sangeon, Executive Director in charge of Gas Turbine (GT) design at Doosan Enerbility, is giving an interview to The Asia Business Daily. Photo by Dongju Yoon

By contrast, Doosan Enerbility transparently shares gas turbine operating conditions and improvements with power generation companies. Lee emphasized, “Our principle is to dispatch field staff within 12 hours and executives within 48 hours when a problem occurs. We have built a logistics system so that our 380 MW model, which is the standard type in Korea, is 100% compatible with parts at any domestic power generation company. This enables an emergency response structure within 24 hours.” He added, “For the North American market, we are pursuing a close-care strategy using DTS, a Houston-based maintenance specialist acquired in 2017, as our forward base.”

Doosan Enerbility is not content with its current achievements and is accelerating efforts to lead the future eco-friendly clean fuel gas turbine market. To enter overseas markets with different frequencies (50 Hz), the company is developing the mid-sized “DGT-100” (100 MW-class) model to world-leading performance standards, which can be used in both 50 Hz and 60 Hz regions simply by changing the gearbox. In particular, the next-generation model is being designed as a “hydrogen-fueled gas turbine” capable of burning 100% hydrogen, in addition to natural gas. Hydrogen has a flame speed eight times faster than natural gas, which melts nozzles and poses extreme technical challenges, but Doosan is overcoming these with advanced combustion technologies, high-temperature materials for durability, and precision coating techniques. Furthermore, targeting markets such as the Middle East where demand for liquid fuels is high, Doosan plans to develop a “Multi-Fuel Gas Turbine” capable of handling gas, hydrogen, and liquid fuels to meet customers’ diverse energy needs, with demonstration operations slated to begin by 2029.

Lee dreams of the day when Doosan Enerbility becomes a world-leading player in the gas turbine sector. He said, “The typical lifespan of a gas turbine is about 20 years, and for turbines operating in high-temperature conditions, the casing must be replaced with new parts every 50,000 hours (5–6 years) according to the design life. My dream as an engineer is to retire after hearing field evaluations that ‘Doosan gas turbines can be trusted’ when the casing is disassembled for parts replacement on a turbine that my team and I built day and night, just before it reaches the end of its life.”

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