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Republic of Korea PV technology status and prospects Jinsoo Song, Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) |
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The Korean government has definitely settled “The 2nd General National Energy
Plan” in December 2002, which is a 10 year long-term plan for the years 2002 -
2011. This will provide directions to decision-makers as they establish policies
and strategies to promote the energy industry. Worldwide globalization and the
rapidly emerging East-Asian energy market are causing dramatic environmental changes
in world energy market. Regarding the great need of positive proposal to cope
with this phenomenon, the objective of the 2nd General National Energy Plan is
to pursue the sustainable development of domestic energy market. The method adopted
to achieve this objective is the progressive transfer of the government managed
system of Korea’s energy market into a privately managed one. Korea’s renewable
energy market is presently succeeding a 1,12 % dissemination rate of total energy
consumption. The rate is expected to rise to 5 % until 2011, as this objective
is accomplished. With the promise of continuous economic development in Korea,
an action plan aimed at establishing environmently friendly energy systems has
been developed. Since the core has led the renewable energy market to focus on
PV power development, and as a result, renewable energy is considered to be PV
power.
The growth of renewable energy market is highly dependent on practical support for PV technical development and its dissemination rate. By this definition, the “Solar Land 2010” program has been specifically declared.
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To enlarge the use of PV power, it is necessary to find a solution to the high
expense of PV power system installations. The “Solar Land 2010” program is fundamentally
aiming at utilizing cost-effective PV power systems to be economically competitive
against commercialized electronic power systems. The advanced technology, large-scale
production, and high-level distribution of PV will be the prominent factors in
attaining this goal. Considering these three factors, the Korean government has
selected the projects described below:
Table 1: National budget for PV R&D and dissemination from 2002 tot 2008 in billion KRW = Korean Won (1 USD is equivalent to about 1,200 KRW)
| 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2008 | Total | |
| R&D | 5,0 | 9,0 | 13,0 | 72,0 | 99,0 |
| Dissemination | 7,1 | 12,8 | 18,0 | 120,0 | 157,9 |
| Total | 12,1 | 21,8 | 31,0 | 192,0 | 256,9 |
Table 1 shows that the cost of both technology development (R&D) and dissemination of PV systems will need 256,9 billion KRW in total for the years 2002 – 2008; 99,0 billion KRW for the former and 157,9 for the later, respectively. The PV companies participating in the program have planned to pay about 100,0 billion KRW for the expense of their own technology development in addition to govern-mental financial aids.
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The major research projects presently undertaken are the following:
Beside the projects listed above, there are three representative supportive activities for technical development to be introduced here. The one is standardization activity to comply Korean Industrial Standards(KS) to the IEC which represents the international standard. As an international collaborative project, the field test of PV power systems, implemented in developing countries such as Vietnam and Mongolia, is another. The activity both to strengthen the IEA-PVPS programme and to found a “Renewable Energy Forum in North-East Asia” is the third.
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The electrification rate of Korea is reaching 99 %, of which Korea’s PV market
has been limited to islands or mountainous areas where there are geographical
obstacles in obtaining commercialized electricity. Therefore, the amount of PV
applications has been more inclined to government enterprises than private ones.
Playing as a significant figure in the decision making process of PV industry,
the Korean government has exacerbated the tendency of that the changes of annual
rate of PV power system installation is to be subordinate to government PV dissemination
policy. However, the government policies in a supportive manner toward PV industry,
as shown in Table 2, have resulted in an upward-trend of the annual rate of PV
power system installation. The achievement of 792 kW PV power energy distribution
in 2001, demonstrates a 49 % increase in comparison with the previous year. For
the rate of PV power system installation per application area, electrification
for isolated islands and BIPV applications ranked as the highest number installations
as with 259 kW. Street lamps for highways and resort areas consumed 204 kW, ranking
the second; traffic signals and power sources for communications followed. Since
late 2001, the capacity of PV installation has been accumulated to reach 4 943
kWp. In 2010, when the Solar Land 2010 program will have come to the end, it is
anticipated that the capacity will reach 120 MWP.
Table 2: PV installation for various applications in 2001 (kWp)
| Application | Installation Capacity [kWp] |
| Electrification | 259 |
| Communication | 62,8 |
| Street lamps | 203,9 |
| Emergency telephone | – |
| Water recycling | 46 |
| Road, aviation signaling | 80 |
| Others | 139,8 |
| Total | 791,5 |
The main PV cell manufacturers are Neskosolar and Photon Semicon Energy equipped with IMW production facility and two more up-and-coming companies are in the preparation process for the large scale production of PV cell. In the case of PV module manufacturing, large enterprises, like Samsung Energy and LG, have been leading figures, but small and medium-sided enterprises, such as, Solar Tech, Soleitech, and Haesung, are actively participating in this business.
They assemble home-manufactured solar cells and imported solar cells to make solar modules that will be exported to other countries. In addition, there are relevant manufacturers growing in number, for example, DongMyung Electronic and Hex Power, the inverter manufacturer, and Global Hitech, the lead-acid battery manufacturer, etc.
The rise of domestic and international market demand will progressively contribute to the growth of these kinds of companies.
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As mentioned above, progressive improvement in PV technology that will succeed
the preferred level of manufacturing capacity plays the key role in developing
PV industry equally with the issue of cost-reduction to promote the enlarged use
of PV power. The Korean national PV program has established a so called, “Cost
Target,” as shown in Figure 4 in order to achieve competitive pricing for PV products.
It has a plan to price down the module to 1,9 USD/Wp, which had been 7,0 USD/Wp
and to reduce the cost of Balance-of-Systems, such as inverter and storage battery,
down to one third of the present cost state. Prior to this, reduction in the price
of solar cells will be achieved. The reduced price will be 1,7 USD/Wp until the
year 2010, compared to 3,5 USD/Wp, present cost.
In the event of this cost target completion, the price of PV power system is anticipated to be dropped to 5 000 000 KRW per kW from 15 000000 KRW per kW. Furthermore, this price drop of PV power systems will provoke the reduction in unit cost of production, which is expected to be 270 KRW/kWh.
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