Renewable energy increased by 30% year-on-year.

Renewable energy increased by 30% year-on-year.

Renewable energy generation increased by 30% in February...Attention to whether the portion will continue to expand

     

New and renewable energy power generation grew 30% on-year in February amid the government's pace to expand renewable energy facilities, a report showed Wednesday. Power generation increased significantly in the winter when solar power efficiency fell. The government plans to supply 2.5GW of renewable energy facilities, including solar and wind energy, this year. Attention is focusing on how much renewable power generation will increase.

According to the Korea Electric Power Corp.'s statistics breaking news on Thursday, renewable energy generation reached 2,649 gigawatt hours in February, up 32.4 percent from February a year earlier.

New and renewable energy generation has been in negative territory for the whole of last year. It rose 3.0 percent to 2,367 GWh in December last year. In February, the amount of power generation increased sharply with a 32.4 percent expansion.

This is attributed to the large expansion of renewable energy facilities, along with the increase in the number of working days in February as this year's Lunar New Year holiday was moved to January. Compared with a 3.3 percent increase in total power generation in February, the increase was steep. In addition, power generation expanded despite the drop in the efficiency of solar energy generation, which accounts for a large portion of power generation among renewable energy sources, as it is winter with less sunlight.

However, the proportion of energy sources that emit a lot of greenhouse gases such as bioenergy and waste energy was still high. Combined with bioenergy (89 million kilowatts) and waste energy (280,000 kilowatts) in February, the figure stands at 1.17 million kilowatts, close to 77 percent of 1.51 million kilowatts, the share of wind energy generation.

Energy from incineration in Korea is also included in the renewable energy standard, but only rotting in foreign countries is included as renewable energy, said an expert at an energy-related agency.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is planning to greatly expand the supply of solar and wind power facilities this year. Of this year's 2.5GW target, 2.3GW will be filled with clean energy such as solar and wind power. Large-scale solar and wind farms will be expanded, with the completion of the Yeongam Solar and Jangheung Wind Power Complex and the construction of the Saemangeum Solar and Hallim offshore wind power. Its ratio of no supply of renewable energy has also expanded from 6 percent last year to 7 percent this year.

However, the share of the total power generation was still insufficient at 5.7 percent. This is because renewable energy generation usually accounts for a small portion of the total power generation due to a lack of sunlight in winter. Attention is being paid to whether the renewable energy facility expanded last year this spring will lead to an increase in power generation. New and renewable energy facilities rose 32.8 percent in February this year from 12,573 megawatts as of February last year.

"If the weather is too hot, solar light is rather less efficient and is the most efficient in May or October," said an expert at the energy agency. "We need to look at the annual amount of power generation because the offshore wind power will also be expanded this year."

Byeon Sang-geun, an e-newspaper