South Korea’s Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment on Friday said that full-scale rollout is starting this year of an initiative to implement a next-generation distributed power grid, backed with about KRW 321 billion (USD 222.5m/EUR 188.6m) in government funding.
The plan includes expanding the deployment of flexibility resources such as energy storage systems in distribution networks with large solar interconnection queues because of grid saturation. It will start with 20 energy storage systems this year and increase that to 85 by 2030. These systems are expected to allow about 485 MW of additional solar capacity to join the grid.
The government funding earmarked for distribution network storage deployment this year is KRW 117.6 billion. Another KRW 98.4 billion will be allocated for the deployment of small-scale energy storage systems to help revitalise solar income villages, while a further KRW 70.24 billion in government funding is planned to support the establishment of microgrids in distribution networks.
“As the next-generation distributed power grid project begins full-scale deployment this year, the government, industry, academia and related institutions will join forces to ensure it becomes a global model,” commented Minister Kim Sunghwan.
