<Anchor>



As the weather continues to be unbearable without air conditioning, electricity consumption is at an all-time high.

If it goes like this, there has even been a saying that a 'circular power outage' can be done, which cuts off electricity in each region like 10 years ago.



This is reporter Jung Jun-ho.



<Reporter>



At 5 pm, when electricity demand peaks during the day.



The KPX employees who are responsible for supply and demand of electricity stare intently at the status board.



Fortunately, today (the 8th) was lower than yesterday, so the number did not rise significantly, but these days it is a series of tensions.



[Roh Seung-joo / Deputy Manager of Gyeongin Branch of the Korea Electric Power Exchange: The demand for electricity is increasing rapidly compared to last year due to the high temperature and humidity these days.]



Yesterday alone, the peak demand for electricity soared to a record high of 92,990 megawatts in the summer. I did.



The reserve ratio, which represents the remaining percentage of electricity produced by the power plant, also recorded 7.2%, falling below the safety line of 10%.


Enlarging an image

The government expected this to happen in the second week of August, the hottest week, but the emergency came more than a month earlier.



Park Il-joon, 2nd Vice Minister of Industry and Trade, said that if mid-August is in this state, he may be able to redo the 'circular power outage' he wrote in 2011.



It means that you can turn off electricity at home and in stores by region.



In order to prevent this situation, we even made a plan to restart an old coal power plant that had been stopped.



However, it is a burden to reduce the efficiency of solar power generation due to cloudy weather.



[Seung-Hoon Yoo/Professor, Department of Energy Policy, Seoul National University of Science and Technology: It was cloudy yesterday, so the amount of solar power generation did not come out.

Then I have to use KEPCO's electricity now.

Then the demand will increase.]



Although it will rain all over the country next week, the demand for electricity will not decrease significantly as the humidity is high and the temperature is higher than normal.



(Video coverage: Kim Won-bae, Video editing: Hwang Ji-young)