South Korea's Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment and the state utility KEPCO set out a regional electricity pricing scheme at a public hearing on 26 August, dividing the country into four broad zones refined into eleven pricing zones, with Jeju excluded1. KEPCO, the Korea Electric Power Corporation, is the state-owned utility that generates and sells most of the country's power.
Industrial rates outside southern Seoul and southern Gyeonggi would fall under the proposal, for an estimated 2.8 trillion won of annual industrial savings, and the ministry named new semiconductor clusters and data centres as the intended beneficiaries2. The hearing opens a consultation, and no tariff has been set.
Uniform national pricing tells a developer nothing about where the grid has headroom. Charging less away from the capital region pays that developer to build where the network can carry the load, which reverses the instruction congestion around Seoul gives today. Ofgem reached for price too, charging British grid applicants by the megawatt for the offers they hold. One instrument sorts serious applications from speculative ones and the other steers geography, and both replace a queue ordered by the calendar with one ordered by cost.
