hankyoreh

South Korean Minister of Trade

South Korea and China plan to hasten their joint research efforts toward connecting their power grids as the first stage in a “Northeast Asian supergrid.”

The Northeast Asian supergrid vision involves linking China with the power grids of South Korea and Japan, which are currently disconnected from the Asian mainland, to allow supplies of electricity produced through China and Mongolia’s abundant renewable energy sources. The current target is to begin construction on a portion of the system by 2022.

The South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) held an inaugural South Korea-China energy council meeting on May 29 with the National Energy Administration (NEA), a Cabinet-level Chinese agency in charge of energy, at Lotte Hotel Seoul. At the meeting, the two sides pledged to cooperate in the areas of electricity, gas, and new and renewable energies. At a summit last December, the two sides agreed to establish a bureau director-level government-civilian energy cooperation channel between MOTIE and the NEA.

In their May 29 meeting, they established plans for active support on analyzing technical and economic feasibility – including the technology, costs, and locations to build an ocean-floor power network for the supergrid – and the completion of joint research within the year.

In the area of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the two sides fine-tuned the final draft of a memorandum of understanding on natural gas cooperation with the Japanese government as agreed upon at a trilateral summit last month. Respectively the world’s second- and third-ranked importers of natural gas, China and South Korea agreed to cooperation on boosting transparency and liquidity in the global natural gas market, which is currently disadvantageous to importers.

Their plans include addressing destination clauses that bar the sale of unconsumed volumes to other countries and contractual conditions that prevent adjustments to purchase volumes, while promoting “LNG swaps” in cases where crisis situations result in unstable LNG supplies. In terms of new and renewable energies, they agreed to examine measures for policy-sharing and joint research on major issues.

By Cho Kye-wan, staff reporters

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