South Korea presents carbon footprint policies for solar modules

• The laws will certainly enter into pressure on June 15 and also will require panel carbon footprints being determined according to life cycle assessments of their ecological effects according to the KS I ISO 14040 Korean requirement.

South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and also Energy (Motie) has actually expanded the regulations which will certainly see the carbon footprint of solar power projects thought about when prioritizing brand-new setups.

With the government having revealed its intent to analyze the carbon impact of solar panels in March in 2015, as well as industry reps gotten in touch with on the proposition in recent months, Motie has defined the new laws, which are due to enter pressure from June 15.

Crystalline silicon module carbon footprints-- for Korean as well as imported items-- will be approximated making use of a life process evaluation (LCA) of their environmental effects which adheres to Oriental common KS I ISO 14040.

The brand-new regulations will certainly echo those applied in France, where big range solar tenders take low-carbon production right into account, as well as the cost developers agree to accept for the power created. South Korea, like France, has a considerable nuclear power generation capacity which will certainly assist the low-carbon initiatives of domestic photovoltaic panel makers.

Motie in January released figures which contradicted media declares Chinese panel manufacturers had been aggressively wearing down the market share of Korean solar makers. According to the federal government department, Oriental solar business offered around 72% of the nation's PV panels in 2016, 73.5% the following year, 72.5% in 2018 and 78.7% in 2014. Throughout the same duration, according to Motie, the proportion of Chinese panels on the Korean market dropped from 28% to 26.5%, 27.5% and 21.3%, specifically.

"The record mentioning that Chinese firms dominate [the] Oriental PV market is not true," stated the federal government at the time.