The government has asked people to conserve electricity as part of efforts to cope with dwindling electricity reserves, which are forecast to drop to 1.5 million kW in the third and fourth weeks of August.
Vice Minister for Trade and Energy Cho Seok presided over a meeting of government and industry officials on May 10 to take countermeasures against a shortage of electricity during summer.
Officials at the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE) said the nation has already been put on alert against electricity supply shortages due to hot weather conditions and power plant supply problems. Electricity reserves now stand at somewhere between 4 million kW and 5 million kW, but the reserve levels are dangerous as businesses using large amounts of electricity have readjusted their operating hours to conserve between 1 million kW and 2 million kW. MKE officials said emergency measures can be taken when electricity reserves fall below the 4 million kW mark, but they expressed worry that the current reserve levels are more than 5 million kW lower than the 9 million kW level recorded during last year.
Accordingly, the MKE decided to delay the preventive maintenance of nine power plants from the scheduled period of between May and June to September and October in order to secure 1 million to 2 million KW of electricity, while local independent electricity providers will be asked to operate idling units at full blast for an additional 400,000 kW. The ministry is considering offering incentives to businesses that join forces in readjusting their operating hours to non-peak load time, they said.
MKE officials said as air-conditioners account for about 21 percent of summer peak electricity demand, electricity guzzlers such as department stores and other large-sized businesses are asked to restrain their use of air-conditioners. Four-hundred eighty-seven large buildings like department stores and hotels will be asked to keep their indoor temperatures at 26 degrees Celsius or higher, and government offices will have to maintain indoor temperatures at 28 degrees.
Vice Minister Cho said, “If the business community actively cooperates, the great summer crisis can be overcome without a power cut like last winter.” He urged the business community to take the lead in tiding over the national crisis by spreading peak demand and building production systems to lower electricity consumption.
The vice minister said the government was studying Korea Electric Power Corp.’s (KEPCO) offer to raise electricity charges by 13.1 percent.
In a related development, a nationwide campaign to conserve energy last winter saved 3 million kW in maximum electric power and 3.5 billion kWh in electric power consumption, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE) said on April 30.
The 3.5 billion kWh represents 4.1 percent of the 73.83 million kW maximum electric power recorded during the whole of the winter season and an equivalent to the combined capacity of six 500,000-kW thermal power plants.
Thanks to people’s participation in the conservation campaign lasting from last December to this past February, the nation saw electricity consumption edge up only 1.5 percent during the three-month period over the same period one year earlier when electricity consumption shot up 7.7 percent.
