KDHC President Kim Seong-hoe poses with other participants of an international community energy seminar celebrating the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the KDHC held at The-K Hotel in southeastern Seoul from Aug. 27 to 29. (Photo:KDHC)

Korea District Heating Corp. (KDHC) is an energy public entity charged with supplying heating energy to 1.3 million households in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. KDHC boasts an annual power production of 10,800MW, an equivalent to 1.6 nuclear power units.

The KDHC is now seeking to expand its business turf abroad.

The corporation hosted an international community energy seminar celebrating the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the KDHC at The-K Hotel in southeastern Seoul from Aug. 27 to 29, which attracted 400 people, including some 80 foreign and Korean energy experts. The seminar was designed to explore ways of opening the new future of community energy. KDHC President Kim Seong-hoe, in his opening speech at the event, expressed hope that the seminar would serve as an opportunity to publicize the superiority of district heating and cooling systems’ contribution to global energy conservation and greenhouse gas emission reduction and the need for their expansion. He also called for the development of community energy through continued international exchanges and collaboration. 

Community energy refers to the supplying of hot water and heating from combined-cycle power plants in the vicinity. Apartments in most provincial cities other than the Seoul metropolitan areas are mostly outfitted with oil and gas boilers for individual or central heating, which have turned out to be less energy efficient. On the other hand, community energy could raise energy efficiency up to 80 percent. 

Community energy has such strengths as keeping room temperatures steady around-the-clock and the improvement of safety. In particular, community energy emerges as a next-generation energy system designed to cope with such environmental issues as climate change, as waste heat and gas from incinerators and landfills can be reused to create renewable energy. 

Optimization of energy utilization and eco-friendliness has become a much talked-about global issue. Among the participants at the seminar were Robert Thornton of the International District Energy Association (IDEA) and Paul Voss, managing director of Euro Heat & Power. They stressed community energy’s strong points ? energy conservation and greenhouse gas emission reduction and touched on Europe and North America’s plans to expand district heating and air-conditioning. Voss said EU has a target of having all structures with no greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and district heating takes on significance as a sustainable low-carbon energy system. In reality, KDHC is one of the entities most faithfully committed to abiding to the renewable portfolio standards. 

KDHC President Kim said, “KDHC is aggressively turning to the exploration of such renewable energy resources as photovoltaic power and bio gas. Kim added that the corporation uses renewable energy resources in the thermal energy sector, and it plans to raise the portion of thermal energy to 16 percent by 2024. To this end, KDHC is building a combined cycle power plant in the Gwangju and Jeollanam-do community energy operations, which will sold refuse fuel (SRF), made through the reusing of urban waste. Combined cycle power plants will supply power and heating to some 20,000 public housing units in the innovative city of Gwangju and Jeollanam-do, public and commercial buildings. 

KDHC recently agreed with the Philippine government to export district heating technology using SRF and waste heat.

On the sidelines of the seminar, KDHC signed an MOU with IDEA, EHP, China and Mongolia to strengthen international cooperation in the community energy field and to share expertise and experiences on a regular basis. 

KHDC President Kim said Korea will be the first country in Asia to host the 15th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling, to be organized by the Implementing Agreement on District Heating and Cooling including Combined Heat and Power “IEA-DHC.” KDHC will redouble efforts to take the lead in the spreading of community energy, he added. 

The government plans to actively back up the use of community energy. The government’s fourth community energy supply plan calls for supplying district heating to 16.9 percent of all households across the nation by 2018.