The Moon government can’t do it by law… Solar power will be built more in the future
- allforyouclick
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- on Jun 17, 2023
In the results of the audit on new and renewable energy by the Board of Audit and Inspection on the 13th, what shocked the public the most was the ‘solar power pandemonium’ in which public officials abused their authority and colluded with private business operators to commit corruption, and business operators rushed to collect blind subsidies. . The cause of this corruption is pointed out to be the Moon Jae-in administration’s ‘solar power speed’.
A bigger problem is that the speed of the solar power generation of the previous government cannot be adjusted even in the present government without a revision of the law. According to the current law and various energy plans based on it, the current government’s annual average solar power supply scale will reach 1.5 times that of the Moon Jae-in government. The ironic situation has arisen that the speed of solar power has to increase to the level of runaway because the last government’s ‘renewable nail law’, which was pushed by taking control of the National Assembly, was so wide and deeply embedded. Considering the nature of civil servant society, where laws and regulations do not change out of fear of punishment, it is pointed out that proper energy policy promotion is impossible under the current laws and regulations.
According to the government and industry on the 15th, the ‘Basic Carbon Neutral Act’ promulgated at the end of the last administration’s term is considered the main culprit that disrupts the nation’s overall energy plan. The previous government declared to the international community in 2021 that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 2018, and nailed it to the Carbon Basic Law and enforcement ordinance. For this reason, the national main energy plan as well as the local government plan had to be aligned. The entire national economy and industry, from power plant construction and natural gas contracts to steel production and apartment construction, was constrained to unreasonable ‘greenhouse gas reduction targets’. Professor Sohn Yang-hoon of Incheon National University said, “Except for some EU countries, we are the only country that has set a GHG reduction target by law . They are threatening,” he said. Former President Moon Jae-in, at COP 26 (the 26th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)
held in Glasgow, England in November 2021, half a year before his term of office, Korea’s ‘2030 NDC (Greenhouse Gas Reduction Target)’ was significantly raised from 26.3% to 40%. declared as At the time the UN(United Nations) Even when all the targets of 143 countries are combined, the reduction is only 9% compared to 2010. Experts and industries criticized the level of ‘self-harm’ for Korea, which has a large share of manufacturing, in setting such a target. However, the Moon government promised this to the international community. Earlier in September of the same year, the Moon government nailed the reduction target to ‘35% or more’ in the Basic Act on Carbon Neutrality, and ‘40%’ in the enforcement decree two months before the end of the term.
Impact everything from power plans to new buildings
The Carbon Neutrality Act and Enforcement Decree, which the Moon government came up with before and after the presidential election, are causing many problems by hovering like ghosts in the process of establishing an energy plan by the current government.
The 10th Basic Plan for Electricity Supply and Demand announced earlier this year is a representative example. The current government has decided to increase the nuclear power plant ratio from 27.4% in 2021 to 32.4% in 2030, reflecting the scrapping of the nuclear power plant policy. However, it was also decided to increase the share of renewable energy from 7.5% to 21.6%. In a situation where greenhouse gas emissions in the power generation sector must be reduced by 45.9% from 2018 by 2030, increasing the operation of nuclear power plants was not enough, and the rest had to be met by expanding solar and wind power. Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4, which had decided to resume construction, could only be operated between 2032 and 2033, which did not contribute to the 2030 plan. As such, in the 10th plan, the annual average supply of renewable energy including solar power was 5.3GW (gigawatts), an increase of more than 50% from the previous government (annual average of 3.5GW). The current government, which aims to investigate various corruptions caused by the excessive speed of solar power by the previous government, is constrained by the laws and regulations created by the previous government.
As nuclear power and renewable power generation surged, LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) power generation was also hit by a grenade. In the 10th plan, as LNG power generation decreases, LNG demand will decrease by more than 5% per year by 2030 . In line with this, LNG imports should also be reduced, but the government had to create a new item called ‘supply and demand management demand’ to allow more imports than planned. A person who participated in the planning said안전놀이터, “It is a desperate measure that reflects the fact that LNG import plans cannot be made in violation of legal regulations , and that a serious energy crisis may occur if LNG is not secured.”
The industry is also worried. In the ‘2030 NDC Implementation Plan’ announced in March, the greenhouse gas reduction target was slightly reduced from 14.5% to 11.4%, but it still far exceeds the 5% that the industry claims to be able to reduce. Petrochemicals must reduce carbon emissions even though the facility scale will increase by more than 50% by 2026 compared to 2018. Professor Cho Hong-jong of Dankook University said, “The revised 2030 NDC plan is bound to put a considerable burden on companies.”
The construction industry immediately caught fire. This is because the last government mandated zero-energy construction for public housing from this year and private housing from next year. Zero-energy architecture is a construction method that enhances the insulation performance of buildings and produces new and renewable energy such as solar and geothermal. The construction industry estimates that the construction cost will increase by 5-10% to meet the zero-energy requirements. A representative of a mid-sized construction company in the metropolitan area said, “In a situation where the price of materials such as rebar and cement has recently skyrocketed, if the zero energy requirement is added, the construction cost will skyrocket by 30 to 40%.”
Experts “Need to revise the Carbon Neutral Act”
In the midst of this, the ‘Special Act on High-Level Radioactive Waste’ for the urgent disposal of spent nuclear fuel by corporations and the ‘Energy Act’ for the establishment of the basic energy plan are not speeding up at all. Laws that hinder energy policy are still in power, but the law that is really necessary is not touched. An official from the business community said, “The Carbon Neutral Basic Act is clamping down on the industrial and power generation sectors without even establishing a basic plan for energy.” It is pointed out that more realistic plans should be established by deleting greenhouse gas reduction targets from laws and enforcement ordinances. Professor Cho Seong-bong of Soongsil University said, “We need to give flexibility by subtracting numbers from the statute or adjusting the wording.” A person in the energy industry said, “It is necessary to move the ministry in charge to the Office for Government Policy Coordination, not to the Ministry of Environment, and take a pan-ministerial approach.”