KEPCO President and CEO Kim Dong-cheol outlined the cost-sharing arrangement during a parliamentary audit in response to questions from People Power Party lawmaker Kim Do-eup about transmission facilities planned for the project's first stage.
“KEPCO's share would likely be less than 20 percent,” Kim said. “Samsung and SK hynix are supposed to cover the rest.”
The cost-sharing arrangement, however, could change if the government provides funding under a law that allows central and local governments to cover 50 to 100 percent of the cost of building and operating infrastructure for semiconductor clusters, including power supply facilities.
Kim said that without such support, the utility and the two chipmakers would share the costs according to their respective electricity use.
Separately, KEPCO executives said the utility's financial constraints had prompted an earlier proposal for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix to pay 25 trillion won ($18.76 billion) in electricity bills upfront to help finance power grid expansion.
Kim Jae-gun, Head of KEPCO's Power Grid Division said the company must reduce its bond issuance limit from five times its capital to twice that level by the end of 2027.
“We proposed the advance-payment plan to address the problem on our own,” he said.
The utility's chief also acknowledged that keeping bond issuance within the lower limit was one of KEPCO's biggest financial challenges.
He said the plan had been drawn up by KEPCO following a policy proposal and a related bill introduced by Democratic Party lawmaker Park Jeong, before being presented to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, which rejected it in September.
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