Seoul eyes 18% of global green energy market

Knowledge Ministry reveals road map for developing eco-friendly energy resources


The Ministry of Knowledge Economy on Tuesday revealed a roadmap for developing eco-friendly energy resources aiming to create 1.5 million jobs and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 210 million metric tons by 2030.

The roadmap also lays out plans to create a 94 trillion won ($87 billion) domestic market and exports of 328 trillion won, giving the local eco-friendly energy industries a global market share of 18 percent.

According to the ministry, Korean concerns’ global market share currently stands at about 1.2 percent.

The ministry said that the new roadmap was drawn up by a panel of 176 experts from academia, research organizations and industries. Of the 176-person panel, 110 were industries representatives to ensure that the research and development strategy reflected the private sector’s needs, the ministry said.

According to the roadmap, the government will select 88 products and 288 technologies from 15 fields to focus its resources on.

The 15 fields are solar and wind power, fuel cells, bio-fuels, clean fuels, energy storage, high efficiency lighting, eco-friend automobiles, low-energy buildings, heat pump, smart grid, thermal power generation, carbon capture and storage, as well as integrated gasification combined cycle.

Integrated gasification combined cycle is a technology for gasifying coal and removing impurities from the gas to minimize pollution.

The plan also includes research direction, ways to commercialize the technologies and strategies for tackling the international market for each of the selected fields.

The roadmap also showed that the ministry plans to select 105 technologies as part of efforts to give rise to “star companies” that will become leaders in their fields on the international stage.

The government will also prioritize small- and medium-sized enterprises in future research and development projects.

Along with focusing its resources on selected fields, the government will also work towards increasing synergy between technologies with closely related applications, the roadmap showed.

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)