It was confirmed that the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy reported to the National Planning Advisory Committee in 2017 when the Moon Jae-in government was inaugurated, saying, "If the nuclear phase-out policy is pursued, an increase in electricity rates is expected to be inevitable from five years later."
It is argued that the previous government carried out an unreasonable energy transition policy even though it was expected that the cost of purchasing electricity would increase if the previous government pushed for nuclear phase out.
According to data from the National Planning Advisory Committee in June 2017, obtained by National Power Rep. Yang Geum-hee of the National Assembly’s Committee on Small and Medium Ventures for Industry, Trade, and Resources today (4th), the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy at that time plans to phase out nuclear power plants from 2022. It is understood that they reported that an increase in electricity rates was inevitable.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy presented a three-step plan to raise electricity rates necessary for the implementation of the Moon Jae-in government's energy pledge at the time.
In the first stage, instead of minimizing the factors of rate increase, it is necessary to increase the industrial winter light load rate, in the second stage to promote an overall increase in the rate for industrial and general use, and in the third stage, the rate for all uses should be increased.
At the same time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade predicted that KEPCO's excess profits would be used to absorb the cost increase factors as much as possible without raising the electricity rate from 2018 to 2020. He predicted that rate hikes would be inevitable.
Enlarging an image
It is understood that the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy previously reported to the government in May 2017 that electricity rates must be increased by 2.6% annually until 2030 in order to promote the phase out of nuclear power plants.
It is said that the electricity purchase cost will increase by about KRW 140 trillion for 13 years from 2018 as electricity installed capacity will decrease by up to 32.4 GW by 2030 and low-cost nuclear and coal power generation will decrease.
Specifically, it is predicted that additional electricity purchase costs of KRW 4 trillion from 2018 to 2020, KRW 4 trillion in 2021, KRW 7 trillion in 2022, and KRW 20 trillion in 2030 will occur.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade predicted that the electricity rate would have to be raised from 109.53 won per kWh in 2017 to 112.38 won in 2018, 115.30 won in 2019, 118.30 won in 2020, 121.38 won in 2021, and 124.53 won in 2022.
However, it was analyzed that the actually set electricity rate was only 108.74 won in 2018, 108.65 won in 2019, 109.80 won in 2020, 108.11 won in 2021, and 110.41 won in 2022, which was analyzed to have failed to keep up with the increase rate suggested by the Ministry of Industry.
Enlarging an image
Rep. Han Moo-kyung criticized, "Even though Baek Un-gyu was aware of this fact, he gave a false answer at the personnel hearing in July 2017 that there would be no increase in electricity rates for the next five years." He argued that the 900 billion won in costs incurred due to the suspension of the construction business should also be covered by the tax of the people.
In June, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power applied to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to cover the cost of 727.7 billion won in relation to the early closure of Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1.
Also, in July, the Board of Directors approved an application to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to compensate for the cost of KRW 6.9 billion caused by the suspension of the Daejin Nuclear Power Plant construction project.
KHNP estimated the cost of the maintenance of the Cheonjiwon Battle in 2020 to be 97.9 billion won.
(Photo = Courtesy of Geum-hee Yang, Yonhap News)