Bioenergy power over solar power

Bioenergy power over solar power

Power transactions produced by bioenergy exceeded solar power production last year as large power generators preferred bioenergy to digest RPS supplies. It would be desirable if bioenergy literally produced the leftover from Korea's nature, such as timber and seaweed.

The problem, however, is that rather than domestic resources, only the pattern of using wood pellets imported in large quantities from foreign countries as raw materials or mixing them with coal is renewable energy. Even if power generation companies try to correct this as a case of abusing the current RPS system, they cannot apply the system retroactively, which was implemented a long time ago, so such side effects are growing.

According to the latest data released by the Korea Power Statistics Information System, 26,606GWh of renewable energy traded through the Korea Power Exchange last year, with 4,199GWh of double bioenergy, up a whopping 50 percent from 2,786GWh the previous year. On the other hand, solar power rose 25.7 percent to 3,848 GWh, overtaking bioenergy.

As a result, the issuance of the Renewable Energy Supply Certificate (REC) recorded 31.97 million RECs last year, but bioenergy accounted for 30 percent of the total with 9.38 million RECs. In particular, the production of bioenergy from wood-based bioenergy increased 61 times over the six-year period from 106,023 MWh in 2012 to 6,494,37 MWh in 2018.

The increase in bioenergy power transactions is attributable to the increased use of bioenergy by six power generation subsidiaries under Korea Electric Power Corp., which are trying to protect the mandatory performance of RPS, as it is cheaper and easier to secure RECs than other renewable energy sources by mixing coal power generation without much effort.

Although bioenergy generation such as Woodchip and Woodfellet originally began with the aim of energyizing domestic waste wood, the number of cases of importing and burning wood from abroad, including Vietnam, or mixing it with coal, has increased significantly, making it far from eco-friendly as well as fostering renewable energy.

As the production of bioenergy power, which cannot be seen as renewable energy, has soared, the government has come up with its own countermeasures. Two years ago, the REC weight for bio-collapse development using wood chips and wood pellets was removed and the REC weight for conversion of wood-based electrolytes was also gradually lowered to 0.25 percent.

However, power generation facilities approved before the revised notice and those already in operation are applied with existing weights, making it easier for bioenergy to achieve RPS mandatory performance.

The side effects of the system, which was created by the wind of fostering renewable energy, have not been corrected to increase the use of wood chips and wood pellets using imported foreign wood. In other words, the convenience of large power generation companies, which want to take only easy ways and take shortcuts, is going against the policy of fostering renewable energy industries.

Source: Itu News