Energy Policy in South Korea

Dear Colleagues,

Korea is the world’s eighth largest energy-consuming country, but its dependence on energy imports is 94.7%, making it an important task to secure stable energy. Therefore, as a country with limited energy reserves, setting up and implementing the nation’s energy policy became a crucial task for its survival. Meanwhile, the rate of increase in greenhouse gas emissions is the second highest among OECD countries. As of 2017, coal power generation accounted for 43%, raising the issue of reducing greenhouse gases and ultrafine dust emissions. Moreover, as of 2017, the share of nuclear power generation is about 30%, while renewable energy is only 7%.

Thus, the Moon Jae-In government, newly launched in 2017, is pursuing the energy transition, which means a reduction in nuclear power and coal-fired generation, and an expansion in renewable energies. In particular, the government is strongly implementing the so-called 3020 plan to increase the share of renewable energy generation to 20% by 2030. Many people seem to be in favor of the energy transition even though the energy transition creates a certain amount of financial burden.

However, conflicts still arise, with some intellectuals and media seriously criticizing the problem of reducing nuclear power plants and expanding renewable energy. If you look at the industrial structure of the energy supply sector, there are some cases where public and private companies compete against each other, such as the power generation sector, and a public enterprise is exclusively engaged in the power sales sector. Therefore, the restructuring of the energy industry structure has also emerged as an important topic. I hope that these various issues will be discussed in this Special Issue.

I am writing to invite you to submit your original work in energy policy in South Korea to this Special Issue. As the Guest Editor of this Energies Special Issue on “Energy Policy in South Korea”, I am delighted to extend this invitation to you and I am looking forward to receiving your outstanding contributions.

Prof. Dr. Seung-Hoon Yoo
Guest Editor

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