"It costs about 100 million won to test a switchboard just once. The preparation takes a full day, but the test itself, which costs 100 million won, ends in just 10ms (0.01 seconds), in the blink of an eye."
This is how Woo Sung-han, head of the Power Testing & Technology Institute (PT&T), which leads product manufacturing and testing, explained the difficulty of in-house power testing. His remarks came at LS Electric's (LS ELECTRIC (010120)) PT&T at its No. 2 site in Cheongju, visited on the 24th.
The walls of the high-voltage test room, where voltages exceeding 1,000V are applied, were charred black. These were traces left behind by power equipment exploding under overload. In the low-voltage test room right next door, a warning sound signaled preparations for a 380V-class test. Then, a powerful explosion sound crossed over the safety wall, accompanied by a flash of sparks. Smoke billowed from the power equipment, but the surrounding facilities remained intact. This was a procedure to verify safety through a short-circuit condition in which tens of thousands of amperes of high current instantaneously flow through the product.
Korea's Only In-House Power Test Facility
LS Electric's PT&T is Korea's only in-house power test facility. Here, the safety and performance of power equipment manufactured by LS Electric are evaluated. Its representative facility is the high-power test room. By creating short-circuit conditions on products, it verifies whether circuit breakers, switchboards, and switchgear operate normally under actual accident conditions. In particular, through an "arc fault test," which examines the danger of flames erupting from inside a switchboard during an explosion, it verifies whether people and surrounding equipment can be protected from explosion pressure and high temperatures.
At PT&T, it is possible to obtain the country-by-country certifications required for each piece of power equipment. Power equipment cannot enter the market through simple technology development alone. Certification from major global certification bodies such as UL in the United States, ASTA in the United Kingdom, and KEMA in the Netherlands is required for exports. PT&T has established cooperative relationships with major certification bodies, significantly shortening product development periods and certification acquisition periods. This is because products can be certified based solely on test data conducted at PT&T, without the direct attendance of relevant bodies.
Korea's Leading Experts and Massive Facilities Drive Competitiveness
In addition, PT&T has seven experts registered with the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards who participate as Korean representatives in the technical committees and technical subcommittees of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Through this, the institute can secure the latest information from the discussion stage of IEC standard revisions and amendments, and it also helps with entry into the European market. LS Electric recently completed PT&T's registration as an accredited test laboratory with the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) in the UAE, accelerating its push into the Middle East market.
PT&T also participates in the Short-Circuit Testing Liaison (STL). The STL is a key organization that sets guidelines for power equipment worldwide. In February last year, LS Electric secured PT&T's qualification as an STL KERI (Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute) member laboratory, the first among Korean manufacturing test laboratories, making it one of the companies leading global power equipment standardization.
The scale of the facilities for testing is also enormous. PT&T has two generators with 2,000MVA (mega volt-ampere)-class performance, giving it a total 4,000MVA-class facility. Considering that the power generation capacity of one nuclear power plant is 1,000MVA, the power produced by four nuclear power plants is supplied to run a single PT&T facility.
Expanding Exports on AI-Driven Power Demand
LS Electric has recently been expanding product exports, driven by growing power demand from artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, in the second quarter of this year, LS Electric posted revenue of 1.577 trillion won and operating profit of 178.5 billion won, its best quarterly performance ever. This is because products such as switchgear and switchboards can be verified for performance at PT&T immediately after production, enabling rapid exports. As a result, Big Tech companies accelerating their AI implementation are successively requesting product supplies from LS Electric, which can deliver quickly, rather than from companies that must go through other certification bodies.
In fact, 80% of LS Electric's switchgear and switchboard volume is headed to the United States, the hub of AI data centers and home to Big Tech companies. Of the 1,521 test certifications conducted at PT&T last year, 836 cases, or 55%, were for the North American region. LS Electric estimates this year's North American test ratio at 80%. Owing to this popularity in the U.S. market, the company expects to achieve its 2030 switchgear and switchboard sales target of 1.3 trillion won this year.
An LS Electric official said, "With the expansion of electrification and the growth of AI data centers and the renewable energy market, the importance of verifying the reliability of power equipment is growing." The official added, "PT&T will expand its role as key infrastructure supporting LS Electric's global growth and as a symbol of the competitiveness of Korea's power industry."
