South Korean Presidential Office: Expanding Renewable Energy Does Not Mean Abandoning Nuclear Power; New Nuclear and SMR Projects Already Decided

On July 3, Kim Woo-chang, Secretary for National AI Policy at the South Korean Presidential Office, responded on a program to external concerns over the power supply capacity of the semiconductor cluster in the Honam region, stating that the southwestern region of South Korea already possesses sufficient renewable energy conditions, with further room for expansion in the future.

Kim Woo-chang said that South Korea's power generation resources are generally concentrated in the southwestern region, the Busan—Ulsan—Gyeongnam area, and the vicinity of nuclear power plants in Gangwon-do; the Seoul metropolitan area and central regions such as Chungcheong-do rely primarily on transmission networks for electricity. Therefore, locating large-scale power-consuming projects near power sources is one of the realistic options.

In response to the question of "whether renewable energy alone is sufficient to support the semiconductor industry cluster," Kim Woo-chang emphasized that South Korea's power grid is interconnected and the national power supply does not depend on a single energy source. He also noted that renewable energy currently accounts for approximately 9% of South Korea's power generation, while the OECD average exceeds 30%. Against the backdrop of increasingly stringent requirements for low-carbon electricity in global trade rules and industrial supply chains, if South Korea fails to increase its renewable energy share, its future export competitiveness could be affected.

Regarding the criticism that "expanding renewable energy implies the gradual phase-out of nuclear power," Kim Woo-chang stated that such a claim is a misunderstanding of the current administration's policy. He mentioned that the government had recently announced plans to build nuclear power plants and small modular reactors (SMRs), and had already decided to advance new nuclear projects. He emphasized that decarbonization does not equate to abandoning nuclear power.