COP31 Discussions on Electrification Intensify as South Korea's Power Grid Expansion Stalls
The international community is accelerating efforts to expand electricity usage across all sectors, including industry, transportation, and buildings, highlighting the growing importance of enhancing South Korea's power grid. The government is promoting a transition to an 'electric nation' through increased renewable energy and industrial decarbonization, but the pace of power generation facility growth is outstripping the development of transmission and distribution networks, creating a bottleneck.
According to the Ministry of Climate, Energy, and Environment, the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31) will be held in Antalya, Turkey, from November 9 to 20. A key agenda item will be the '35 by 35 Global Electrification Pledge' led by Turkey as the chair country.
This pledge aims to raise the share of electricity in global final energy consumption to 35% by 2035. It envisions expanding electricity use in industry, transportation, and buildings while enhancing investments and international cooperation in power grids and energy storage systems (ESS). The South Korean government is also seeking to join this pledge.
According to a recent special report on electrification by the International Energy Agency (IEA), electricity accounted for approximately 23% of global final energy consumption last year. In a separate report on 'power grid modernization,' the IEA analyzed that to meet the increasing electricity demand by 2035, global power grid capacity must be expanded by at least 30%.
Domestically, the pace of expanding renewable energy generation facilities is not keeping up with the development of the power grid. Data released by the office of Kim Wi-sang, a member of the National Assembly from the People Power Party, based on submissions from the Korea Energy Agency and Korea Electric Power Corporation, shows that the capacity of domestic renewable energy facilities increased more than fivefold from 7,090 megawatts (MW) in 2016 to 37,111 MW last year.
In contrast, from 2017 to last year, only 2,202 circuit-kilometers (C-km) of the planned 7,266 C-km of transmission and transformation facilities were completed, resulting in a completion rate of just 30.3%. The completion rate for last year was only 21.3%.
The shortage of power grid capacity is exacerbating the issue of connecting generation facilities. As of May this year, 3,546 MW of renewable energy facilities were waiting to connect due to grid capacity shortages, with 64.8% (2,298 MW) concentrated in the Honam region.
The government is also accelerating efforts to expand the power grid. In September, it announced a 'Power Grid Innovation Plan' aimed at constructing transmission and distribution networks while expanding flexible connection systems and ESS utilization. The plan aims to establish a power grid system capable of accommodating over 100 GW of renewable energy by 2030.
The Ministry of Climate, Energy, and Environment stated, "We plan to expand international cooperation by participating in the COP31 electrification pledge based on the Korean-style Green Transition (K-GX) strategy and the vision of an electric nation."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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