Impact of new technology on the Korean electricity industry

Abstract

The peak power demand in Korea in 1999 was 37.3 GW, and the total generating capacity was 44.4 GW. Compared with the peak demand of 5.4 GW in 1979, peak demand has increased about seven-fold. This means that the annual rate of increase over the past 20 years has been about 10%. This is unlikely to be found in any other country. Furthermore, according to the long-term plan, peak demand is expected to double during the next 15 years. In addition to such a high rate of increase in power demand, there are associated difficulties in developing generating plants and expanding transmission and distribution systems. These associated difficulties are: about 98% of primary energy is imported; about 70% of the country is mountainous; political and military tension exists between South and North Korea; and load centers are far from generating sites. Under such circumstances, every effort until now has been focused on maintaining an appropriate adequacy and security of supply, but it has become more difficult to site new generating plants and transmission lines. This is likely to damage the adequacy and security of the supply. In order to solve such problems, new technology such as FACTS, wide-area management systems (WAMS), HVDC, renewable energy, and dispersed generation is considered to be the best way. This new technology has been already applied or is under study.