The government's new forecast for 2040 power demand, released again after four months, swelled by more than 200 terawatt-hours (TWh) from the previous plan. In particular, peak demand at the time when electricity use is highest was projected at a level that would require building 19 additional large nuclear reactors to meet it. The change reflects newly incorporated demand from "megaprojects" such as semiconductor clusters and artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.
The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment 12th Basic Plan for Electricity Supply and Demand master committee unveiled the results of the "reforecast of power demand" at a forum at the National Assembly Members' Office Building on the 20th.
The baseline demand forecast for 2040, which was 780.8 TWh in April, rose by 205.5 TWh to 986.3 TWh. The target demand, which effectively serves as the basis for generation capacity planning, increased by 189.7 TWh from 657.6 TWh to 847.3 TWh. In an upside scenario that actively assumes AI expansion and carbon neutrality implementation, target demand increased by 191.0 TWh from 694.1 TWh to 885.1 TWh, showing an increase of around 190 TWh in both scenarios.
Most of the increase came from semiconductors and data centers. The net increase for semiconductors rose from 29.3 TWh to 170.5 TWh, and for data centers from 26.5 TWh to 84.9 TWh, with the combined increase of the two items alone totaling 199.6 TWh, accounting for most of the overall rise.
The impact stems from the acceleration of groundbreaking for the Yongin and Honam semiconductor clusters and the detailing since April of plans to build gigawatt (GW)-scale AI data centers by region. Based on actual contracted power, new investment plans were presented for 40 GW in semiconductors and 20.8 GW in data centers by 2040, and a portion of these was prioritized in the latest plan.
The trend-demand increase due to the upward revision of the economic growth rate was limited to 6.5 TWh. The peak demand forecast was also raised from 131.8 GW to 158.4 GW.
With demand projections jumping sharply, it is seen as inevitable that plans to expand power sources such as nuclear, renewables, and energy storage systems (ESS) will be recalculated in sequence. The 11th basic electricity plan reflected 10.3 GW of new generation facilities based on a 2038 target demand of 129.3 GW, but in the 12th plan, as the target demand increases to as much as 165.0 GW, the scale of nuclear and renewable expansion and transmission grid plans are also expected to be adjusted.
As the country must both meet the higher demand and develop renewables into a main power source, the power mix is expected to become a key point of contention during the master committee's deliberations. The committee plans to finalize the 12th basic electricity plan, including this reforecast, within the year after reporting to the National Assembly's standing committee and holding a public hearing.