The new President Yoon Suk-yeol government revealed the direction of energy policies, calling for discarding the previous government’s policy of weaning off nuclear power.
The takeaway of the new government’s energy policies, announced on July 5, is raising the portion of nuclear in the energy portfolio to more than 30 percent by 2030 by ramping up the nuclear power ecosystem.
The new government’s energy policies take into account the inside and outside conditions whereby energy has emerged as a core part of national security.
Now that energy emerges as a core factor of national security and carbon neutrality, the government sees the reestablishment of energy policies through the use of nuclear power to achieve nationally determined contributions of reducing greenhouse emissions by 2030.
The government decided to raise the portion of nuclear power in the energy mix to more than 30 percent by resuming the construction of Shin Hanul Nuclear Power Units 3 & 4 and pushing for the continued operation of the existing nuclear power units under preconditions of securing safety. The nation depended on nuclear power for 27.4 percent of power generation last year.
The electricity amounts for 2030 are set under preconditions that the normal operation of nuclear power units under construction and the continued operation of the existing units will get under way without interruption.
The government also seeks to enact a special law on the treating of high-level radioactive waste. A control tower specializing in related responsibilities will be inaugurated under the control of the prime minister, and ways of managing high-level radwaste will be arranged.
The government plans to set the proper portion for each respective renewable energy, such as photovoltaic power and wind power, by establishing the 10th power supply master plan, to be decided in the fourth quarter of the year, by resetting supply goals of renewable energies.
It plans to induce the reduction of coal-fired power generation in consideration of the supply-demand situation and power grid conditions, and consider utilizing coal-free power generation technologies.
The government plans to take steps to stabilize the power grid coupled with the rising portion of renewable energies and establish efficient re-design and advanced power grid.
It seeks to enact a revision of the special act on the security of resources to build an energy and resources safety regime. The step is designed to set up a national resources security control tower and build an early warning system by expanding the concept and scope of resources security.
Strategic stockpiling will be expanded to ramp up energy supply chains while imports will be diversified through international cooperation and core mineral resources such as manganese and cobalt will be recycled.
The government is aggressively offering support to develop resources. Specifically, public entities’ function of securing resources will be reestablished and the government plans to provide support to the private sector’s development of overseas resources.
The government plans to establish unit price principles of the power market and electricity rates and implement overall unit price compensation principle and unit price indexing system.
It plans to ease Korea Electric Power Corp.’s power sale monopoly structure by expanding the permissible scope of power purchase agreements.
The government plans to export 10 nuclear power units abroad by 2030 by supporting exports in new energy industries. It will pour about 400 billion won to develop homegrown small modular reactors.
If its new energy policies will be implemented without interruption, the nation is forecast to drop its dependence on fossil fuel imports from 81.8 percent last year to about 60 percent in 2030.
Analyses show that creation of new energy industries and making them exports will raise the number of energy innovation venture companies from 2,500 in 2020 to about 5,000 in 2030, creating about 100,000 jobs.
But the implementation of new energy policies will likely take a considerable amount of time. The resumption of the construction of Shin Hanul Nuclear Power Units 3 & 4 is required to be reflected in higher energy plans, legal and administrative procedural requirements.
The resumption of the project can be possible only after obtaining approval on procedures such as the plan on the execution of the development of power resources in accordance with the act on the expediting the development of power resources.
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