After Environment Minister Kim Sung-hwan said the generation capacity of renewable energy should be increased to 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, concerns are emerging in the energy industry that domestic products cannot meet the demand and, in the end, Chinese-made equipment will dominate the renewable energy market.
Minister Kim, at a forum titled "Public discussion on the 2035 national greenhouse gas reduction target (NDC)" held at the National Assembly Members' Office Building in Yeouido 19th, cited expansion of renewable energy as one of the key implementation strategies for the 2035 NDC. He unveiled a plan to roll out renewable energy generation capacity to 100 GW by 2030, a higher level than the 2030 renewable energy installation capacity target (78 GW) set in the 11th Basic Plan for Long-term Electricity Supply and Demand.
According to the new and renewable energy supply statistics published by the Korea Energy Agency (KEA) in December last year, as of the end of 2023, renewable energy installed capacity stood at 35.96 GW. From 2021 to 2023, newly installed renewable energy facilities have been around 4 GW per year.
If, as Minister Kim said, generation capacity is to be increased to 100 GW by 2030, about 10 GW will have to be installed annually over the next five years. Looking only at solar panels, Qcells, the No. 1 domestic company, has a domestic production capacity of around 3 GW. HD Hyundai Energy Solutions' annual solar panel production capacity is 1.3 GW. Even when adding the production capacities of small and midsize domestic solar panel makers such as Shinsung ENG (1 GW), the industry consensus is that it would be difficult to reach 10 GW.
The annual production capacity of Doosan Enerbility and UNISON, which manufacture wind turbines, is estimated at around 0.3–0.5 GW. Since 2017, only 2.1 GW of wind power facilities have been fully installed.
The government's policy is to expand renewable energy while excluding Chinese products as much as possible, but the industry believes Chinese products will be unavoidable if renewable generation capacity is to be ramped up sharply in a short period. China controls most of the solar supply chain from polysilicon → ingot → wafer → cell → module. Wafers have higher technological barriers than modules and cells, and as of 2021 China had about 96% of global production capacity.
China also dominates 95–96% of the global market for polysilicon. Excluding China, Korea's OCI Holdings, Germany's Wacker, and the United States' Hemlock supply polysilicon, but their prices are three times those of Chinese products and their market shares are woefully insufficient.
An industry official said, "Just as subsidies were set to increase electric buses and only Chinese-made ones flooded in, renewable energy could face the same situation."
The government is said to be preparing safeguards to grow domestic industry and protect energy security while increasing renewable energy. A Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy official said, "Regarding wind power, we are working to avoid creating a market structure like solar power, which Chinese products have taken over."