Chairman Kim Chang-seob of Korea Energy Agency.

A poster for 2019 Seoul World Recycling Energy Conference held from Oct. 23 for three days at Coex in Seoul. (Photos: KEA)

Chairman Kim Chang-seob of the Korea Energy Agency said in his column entitled “Expectations on the Seoul World Energy Conference” on Oct. 4 in the Korea Business Daily, that the World Recycling Energy Conference is to be held for three days from Oct. 23 at Coex in Seoul, the 8th annual event for the energy agency.

The event is an international conference on recycling energy policies hosted by the REN21, a non-profit international organization in the area of recycling energy, and the government of the hosting nation, he said.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Seoul Metropolitan Government are joined by the REN21 as co-sponsors with the energy agency as the host.

Around the world, the investments on the development of new and recycled energy have been rising rapidly, taking up almost two/thirds of total investments worldwide that have been poured into the sector, he said. Korea’s new and recycled energy production came only to around 8 percent of the total energy output in the country as of the end of 2017.

Korea, too, decided to boost the output of new and recycled energy to 20 percent of total energy output by 2030 under the “Recycled Energy 2030 Production Plan.”

They have been taking diverse means to speed up the increase in the new and recycled energy output.

Since the launch of the 2030 plan, the new production facilities for new and recycled energy came to 4.6GW, about 1.56 times more than the plan in just about a year and half since the announcement of the plan. The figures show that they came to about one-third of the accumulated production facilities for recycled energy by the end of 2017.

About 30 foreign countries will send their representatives to the Seoul recycled energy conference, including cabinet ministers, mayors of large cities, top executives of companies leading the energy markets around the world, international organizations and academia.

The number of total participants in the global energy conference is likely to come to around 3,500 including government officials and leaders of energy companies and academia in Korea, he said.

He expects the model for the supply of new and recycled energy backed up by Korean experiences will be introduced at the conference to set up a platform in cooperation with major foreign governments, and international organizations paving the way for Korean business firms to enter the global energy market.

The Seoul Energy Initiative will be declared at the end of the Seoul conference, which will lead the participation and cooperation of the central governments and the private sectors to take care of the problems such as energy-poor and climate change in the way of boosting energy supply.

The fact that the Seoul energy conference was brought to Korea represents the international community’s recognition of the success of Korea’s expansion of new and recycled energy production under the strong intentions of the policy makers, which will have the international attention focused on Korea as a model nation., he said.

He said he hoped that the people will recognize the lofty international position of Korea’s new and recycled energy industry and at the same time, the domestic new and recycled energy industry will find the way to advance into the global market as the Seoul conference as the occasion.

Since its establishment in 1980, Korea Energy Agency has been a maestro of efficient and rational energy use in Korea, as a silent guardian of Korea's sound economic development and better quality of life.

KEA has been at the center of laying the foundation for a low energy consumption society and efficient energy using culture, from energy audit services that identify energy saving potential in energy intensive business sites, to ICT based optimization of energy use patterns in industrial and buildings sector.