Minister Kim Seong-hwan of the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment said the government has not yet reached a conclusion on whether to include new nuclear power plants in the 12th Basic Plan for Long-term Electricity Supply and Demand.
The Minister said at a chat with the press corps held at the government complex in Sejong on the 18th that, regarding whether the 12th plan will reflect new nuclear power plants, "It is not possible to set government policy based on the will of the minister in charge alone, so it does not seem appropriate to share my personal view here," adding, "We will make a judgment after going through a debate process."
He added, "On whether to include nuclear power in the 12th plan, what people think about this, what process issues reached through so-called deliberation by experts and the public will go through, and what method of pre-12th plan debates and public discussion we will take, we should finalize as early as this week, or by next week at the latest, to keep the schedule."
The Minister said the government draft of the 12th plan will be finalized in October. He said, "During this regular National Assembly session, roughly in October, we plan to set the government draft, report it to the Climate Response Committee and the National Assembly as part of the legal procedure, and then go through the final confirmation stage," adding, "Before that, we will again undertake a full-fledged public discussion process."
He said the government will redo its electricity demand forecast. "We started with a national discourse on electricity and already conducted one round of demand forecasting, but demand has increased significantly since then, so we plan to start over from demand forecasting," he said. He continued, "How will we forecast demand through 2040? And 2040 is the year when the Lee Jae-myung administration said it would end so-called coal power generation, but after 2040 there will still be 20 generating units that will not have reached their 30-year design life," adding that the government will begin public discussion on "What will we do with these units? Depending on that, to what level will we increase renewable energy?"
On the industrial regional rate system, he said, "We plan to release a draft through a public hearing next week and gather public opinion." He added, "Reflecting issues raised by lawmakers during National Assembly reporting, we decided to clarify the name as the 'industrial regional rate system.'"