Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. will provide four packaged power stations for areas affected by the earthquake and the tsunami in Japan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade announced Sunday.

Packaged power stations are transportable electricity-generating equipment packaged into 40-feet shipping containers.

The packaged power stations will be used to supply power to the cooling system at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, the company said.

According to the shipbuilder, the decision came after its majority shareholder, Rep. Chung Mong-joon of the Grand National Party, suggested to Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik that Hyundai Heavy was in a position to supply this type of equipment to Japan more rapidly than U.S.-based organizations.

The company also said that it will provide additional packaged power stations if required.

According to the Foreign Ministry, the Japanese government has welcomed the offer, and involved parties agreed to ship the equipment to Japan within the next 10 days.

The packaged power stations produced by Hyundai Heavy, the world’s largest shipyard, is each capable of producing 1.7 megawatt of electricity. The combined output of the four packaged power stations is sufficient to supply power to 26,000 people, the Foreign Ministry said.

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)