Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have turned down a KEPCO plan that would have had them prepay KRW 25T in electricity charges, roughly five years of bills, to speed grid work around Korea’s chip clusters.
Samsung’s share was about KRW 20T and SK hynix’s KRW 5T. KEPCO wanted the cash to pull forward transmission and substation investment, starting with the Yongin semiconductor cluster, and offered interest above the two-year treasury yield recovered through future bills.
Both companies supported faster power infrastructure but judged that locking up five years of costs was too heavy a bet on the current memory upcycle.
KEPCO carried KRW 210.7T of debt at the end of June and spends about KRW 11.5B a day on interest. A government waiver allowing bond issuance worth up to five times capital and reserves expires at the end of next year.
Ruling party lawmakers had filed bills to rewrite the Electric Utility Act and the KEPCO Act to enable the arrangement. The refusal leaves the utility looking for other ways to fund the gigawatts that Honam and Yongin will need.
