South Korea's government unveiled a plan on Tuesday to spend about 42 trillion won (36 billion U.S. dollars) on helping develop renewable energy industries such as solar and wind powers and eco-friendly power plants by 2020.
Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Joo Hyung-hwan said at a meeting for future energy strategy committee that the government will invest 42 trillion won in new energy industries by taking all available policy measures by 2020, promising deregulations and various assistances to develop the new energy sectors as new growth engine for exports.
Some 33 trillion won will be spent on the development of renewable energy resources in the next five years, with 4.5 trillion won to be invested in energy storage system and 2 trillion won in eco-friendly power plants.
By focusing on renewable energy developments, Seoul aims to secure 13 million kilowatts of energy from the eco-friendly power plants. It is equivalent to the electricity that 26 coal-fired power plants can produce.
The government raised the required ratio of renewable-energy power generation to 5.0 percent by 2018 and 7.0 percent by 2020, expecting the new energy sectors to create about 30,000 jobs by 2020.
Meanwhile, about 2.5 trillion won would be spent on developing smart meters, an electronic device enabling both electricity consumers and suppliers to remotely connect the power meters and communicate with each other.
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