Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment Kim Seong-hwan has assessed the Moon Jae-in administration’s nuclear phase-out policy as “poorly justified.” He referred to the Moon administration’s contradictory policy of pursuing nuclear power plant exports to foreign countries while implementing a nuclear shutdown policy in Korea.
The minister also stated, “Ideally, I would like to supply all electricity with only renewable energy, but that is difficult as South Korea is virtually an energy island.” This has led to the analysis that the government may have de facto decided to acknowledge the necessity of nuclear power ahead of a public opinion poll that will determine whether to construct new nuclear power plants.
At the 2nd Policy Debate on a Desirable Energy Mix held at the National Assembly Members’ Office Building on Jan. 7, Kim explained that “the Republic of Korea has the world’s best technology in the nuclear power sector” and that the use of nuclear power is inevitable to supply stable and cheap electricity. Following this debate, the government plans to hold an expert roundtable and a public opinion poll to decide on the construction of new nuclear power plants.
Experts participating in the debate proposed various measures to simultaneously compensate for the intermittency of solar energy and the inflexibility of nuclear power. Kang Bu-il, head of the Power System Operation Department at the Korea Power Exchange, pointed out, “The hourly error rate of solar power generation forecasts can reach up to 40%.” This means that due to the nature of solar power generation with its significant output fluctuations, countermeasures such as remote control or connection to energy storage systems (ESS) are essential.
Joo Han-gyu, president of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, also said, “Let’s encourage solar power plants of a certain size or larger to connect at least half of their generation capacity to ESS,” adding, “Even now, the generation cost of ESS-linked solar power plants can be matched to the level of liquefied natural gas (LNG).”
Alternatives were also proposed to flexibly adjust the output of nuclear power plants, which have traditionally operated at 100% capacity year-round. Shin Ho-chul, head of the Central Research Institute at Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, stated, “Currently, flexible operation of nuclear power plants can only reduce output to 80% of facility capacity at a rate of 3 percentage points per hour,” and “We will develop technology to allow adjustment down to 50% of facility capacity at a rate of 10 percentage points per hour starting from 2032.” The frequency of flexible operation is also planned to increase from about 27 days per 18 months currently to about 100 days per year starting from 2032.
However, some experts expressed negativity about expanding the flexible operation of nuclear power plants. Prof. Jeon Young-hwan of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Hongik University pointed out, “The issue of nuclear power’s inflexibility was raised even during the Moon Jae-in administration,” and “They said back then that automatic control was possible, but it still hasn’t been achieved.” An official from a civic group criticized, “We plan to expand renewable energy power plants to 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, so is it acceptable for the flexible operation technology for nuclear plants to be developed only by 2032?”
Source: Business Korea
