SK Innovation to Combine Renewables, BESS and SMRs to Target AI Data Center Power Market

[Financial News] SK Innovation is expanding its integrated energy business by combining various energy sources—including renewable energy, battery energy storage systems (BESS), small modular reactors (SMRs) and liquefied natural gas (LNG)—to supply large-scale power consumers such as artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. The key is to tailor the mix of individual energy sources to customers’ electricity needs and link production with storage, supply and operations.
SK Innovation said on June 16 that it will participate in the 2026 Climate Industry International Expo (WCE), held from June 16 to 18 at BEXCO in Haeundae-gu, Busan. This year’s WCE is being held under the theme “The Great Change Created by Climate Tech: A Leap Toward a Decarbonized World.”
The exhibition will showcase solutions encompassing energy production, storage and operations technologies, as well as AI infrastructure, to address surging power demand driven by the expansion of the AI industry. It will present ways to combine various energy sources—including renewable energy, BESS, SMRs and LNG—in line with customers’ electricity needs.
Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, recently said that SK Innovation could play a role in AI-powered energy solutions and in the “electrification” needed to support AI data centers. The exhibition also focuses on packaging solutions according to customers’ power needs. SK Innovation is pursuing an expansion of its integrated energy business, covering everything from energy production to storage, supply and operational optimization.
SK Innovation will also introduce the current status and expansion plans for its renewable energy business. As of the end of May, it had secured a global renewable energy pipeline of approximately 5.3 gigawatts (GW) and was operating solar and wind projects in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam.
BESS, which can offset the intermittency of renewable energy, will also be displayed. BESS stores electricity generated from renewable sources and supplies it when needed. SK On has enhanced safety by applying predictive battery-management technology, while also improving power-operation efficiency and system scalability through pack-level design.
The company will also present its SMR business. SK is working with TerraPower to build a next-generation SMR ecosystem.
Sodium-cooled nuclear power is drawing attention as a future energy source capable of providing stable electricity to large-scale power consumers such as AI data centers, because its output can be adjusted according to power demand.
LNG combined heat and power generation will also be featured. Based on its LNG value chain, SK Innovation has high-efficiency generation capabilities that supply electricity and heat together, and it is expanding distributed-generation projects for large-scale consumers such as data centers.
An SK Innovation official said, “Supporting the growth of the AI industry requires energy solutions capable of supplying large amounts of power reliably. We plan to provide integrated energy solutions tailored to each customer by utilizing various energy sources, including renewable energy, BESS, SMRs and LNG combined heat and power generation.”

[email protected] Mi-hee Kim Reporter