Isra-Mart srl : New renewable energy goals are set

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Isra-Mart srl news:

Korea will soon introduce revised rules that will require most local electric power service providers to begin replacing an increasing part of their supplies with power generated from renewable energy sources, the government said yesterday.

“The government has completed revising all related regulations and decrees on the development, use and distribution of renewable energy to introduce a new Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS),” the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said.

According to the ministry, the RPS requires all electric power companies generating and selling more than 500 megawatts of electricity per hour to gradually increase the proportion of their power supplies generated from renewable energy sources from 2 percent in 2012 to 10 percent in 2022.

The new government rules on the use of renewable energy will be announced next month and will be officially enacted from the beginning of 2012, the ministry said.

The government move to promote the use of renewable energy also calls for aggressive steps from consumers.

Starting next year, all government and state-run enterprise buildings with an office space of 1,000 square meters or more must use renewable energy sources for at least 10 percent of all of their energy needs.

The rate will increase to 20 percent in 2020, according to the ministry.

“With the introduction of RPS, a new market of 49 trillion won ($42.2 billion) for renewable energy will be created by 2022,” it said.

The move comes as the government is working to increase the country’s use of renewable energy from the current 1 percent of all energy consumption to more than 20 percent by 2020.

To this end, the country is planning to build 1,000 five-megawatt wind turbines in the Yellow Sea by 2019, creating up to 5 gigawatts of electricity per hour, equivalent to the amount of electricity generated by four nuclear reactors, according to ministry officials.

The government also has plans to build 11 nuclear reactors by 2030 to increase the proportion of nuclear power to nearly 30 percent of all energy supplies from the current 14 percent, they said.

Korea currently has 20 nuclear reactors in operation and is building eight new reactors.

In addition, Korea won its first export order for nuclear power plants last year and is in line to gain more.