Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

A review of the deployment programs, impact, and barriers of renewable

energy policies in Korea
Chul Kim
Department of Architecture, College of Architecture, Texas A&M University, College Station, 77840, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Recently, renewable energy has dramatically grown in the power sector. In 2017, the global renewable energy
Energy policy capacity reached a total of 2,195 GW, and solar PV and wind power led to most global renewable energy growth.
Korea However, there are still numerous challenges to deploying renewable energy in power plants and buildings.
Renewable energy
Therefore, many countries are attempting to reform renewable energy policies to overcome drawbacks, using
Solar energy
Wind power
mandatory regulations, incentives and subsidies, and other support programs. In Korea, renewable energy policy
started in the 1980s, but it has not been a high priority in national energy policies. However, in 2017, the
government pledged a phase-out of nuclear plants and suggested renewable energy as alternative national energy
sources for the future. Therefore, this study investigated the structure, drivers, and challenges of renewable
energy policies in Korea. There have been many challenges in renewable energy policies to develop localized
plans for Korea (i.e., rosy prospects of renewable energy projects, physical space restraints for renewable in-
stallations in buildings, and quantitative supply-oriented renewable policies). The outcome of this study would
contribute to the development of improved policies to achieve the Renewable Energy 3020 Plan in Korea.

1. Introduction been a preferred energy source to produce electrical energy in Korea,

Nowadays, renewable energy is widely adopted in many countries to
rebalance energy portfolio and reduce environmental impact from
greenhouse gas emissions in power plants. In the period from 2007
through 2017, the share of renewable energy dramatically increased up
to 56.6% in the global power sector, and the total capacity for electricity
production reached 2,195 GW in 2017. Moreover, solar and wind energy
facilities mostly dominated global renewable energy growth. Solar PV
and wind power accounted for 55% and 29% of the total new renewable
addition in 2017, respectively [1]. However, there are still many chal-
lenges of spreading renewable energy in many countries to replace
conventional fossil energy sources. For example, some nations in the
world may suffer from unfavorable geographical features and the low
renewable energy potential nationwide. Such different environments in
many countries require customized renewable policy and application to
maximize policy effect.
Korea is the eighth-largest energy-consuming country in 2015 and
immoderately high dependent on energy import, which recorded 94.7%
of the total energy supply in 2016 [2]. Therefore, national energy se-
curity and a stable energy supply chain have been a primary goal in the
history of domestic energy policies. Consequently, nuclear power has
which occupied 11.6% of the total source energy and 26.8% of the total
electricity production in 2016 [2]. However, the Fukushima disaster in
Japan awoke many Korean to the risk of radioactive contamination and
changed the social perception of nuclear energy. Also, in 2016, the
Kyongju earthquake with a 5.8 magnitude hit in Korea [3]. This earth-
quake brought up huge social concerns about the potential hazards of
the nuclear accident (i.e., radioactive effluent) [4] because it was
located within only 28 km distance from four nuclear reactors [5]. In
addition, the recent international accords of climate change (i.e., Paris
Climate Agreement) boosted the governments to implement enhanced
renewable energy policies for the reconstruction of the energy mix.
The beginning of the renewable energy policy in Korea started in the
1980s. However, integrated national energy management firstly
appeared in the National Energy Basic Plan of 1997 [6]. In 2008, the
“Low Carbon, Green Growth” policy created a turning point to develop
green technologies and clean energy as a new power of national eco-
nomic growth [7]. At the same time, the National Energy Basic Plan of
2008 aimed at a more stringent target of 11% of the total primary energy
supply (TPES) by 2030 [8]. In 2017, the present government pledged a
phase-out of nuclear and proposed renewable power development to
substitute for fossil fuel power plants. The new renewable energy policy

E-mail address: chulkim0503@tamu.edu.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2021.110870
Received 16 June 2020; Received in revised form 31 January 2021; Accepted 21 February 2021
Available online 30 March 2021
1364-0321/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Kim
targets 20% of the total renewable energy of the total electricity pro-
duction by 2030 (RE 3020 Plan) [9].
Despite the recent bettered targets, the past energy policies in Korea
have been frustrated several times for renewable energy deployment.
For example, although the target of the National Energy Basic Plan of
1997 was 2.7% of the TPES [6], the share of renewable energy in 2006
was only 1.9% of the TPES [10]. In existing projects of renewable en-
ergy, many showed poor electricity generations and a more extended
payback period than initial government reference models [11]. As a
result, the achievement of the previous renewable energy policy in
Korea was still lower than the average renewable energy installation of
10.2% in other OECD countries [12]. However, new momentum is
recently made by the RE 3020 plan. The aggressive energy policy by the
RE 3020 plan is accelerating national-wide renewable energy projects to
achieve the 20% goal by 2030, including the areas in power stations as
well as private and public buildings. However, there are still many ob-
stacles to the expansion of renewable energy. Therefore, to avoid pre-
vious failures and achieve policy goals successfully, the renewable
energy policies should be understood and identified about the impact of
existing renewable energy policies and obstacles in future renewable
energy development in Korea.
For this, this study aims to investigate the structure of past and
present renewable energy policies in Korea and examine the policy
attainment of key drivers. In Section 2, this study described energy mix
and national energy policies associated with past and present renewable
energy policies. Section 3 discussed the key drivers and achievements of
the previous renewable energy policies, and then Section 4 addressed
the policy barriers for the successful implementation of renewable en-
ergy policies to reach the renewable energy 3020 targets1 in Korea.
Section 5 concluded this study based on the diagnosis results of
renewable policy, accomplishments, and barriers to improving national
energy policy in Korea. The results of this study will provide implica-
tions as a reference for better understanding the achievements of Korea’s
renewable energy policy and achieving the RE 3020 plan in the future.
2. Past and present renewable energy policies
2.1. The energy mix
In 2016, Korea consumed 294,654 million tonnes of oil equivalent
(TOE) for primary energy consumption. As for energy sources, petro-
leum supplied 118.1 million TOE, and coal and LNG supplied 81.9
million TOE and 45.5 million TOE, respectively. Nuclear power and
renewable energy were responsible for 34.2 and 13.6 million TOE,
separately. In end-users, the industry sector had a significant market
share, which was 61% of the total serviced energy, and transportation
and building sectors only accounted for 36% of the total end-used en-
ergy. In the power sector, total electricity production was 540,441 GWh.
30% of the power came from nuclear energy, and 65.3% came from
thermal plants, and lastly, the remainder 4% was derived from renew-
able energy in 2016 [13].
In the last ten years, renewable energy has been emerging through
governmental plans and financial support. A total of 9,707 MW
renewable energy dramatically increased from 2007 to 2017. The total
generation from renewable energy in 2017 recorded 2.36 times more
than in 2007. Solar PV dominated the growth of renewable energy,
which was 66.2% of new additions, and the wind accounted for 5.5% of
new additions [14]. Renewable energy is expected to increase during the
1
The government of Korea announced “Renewable Energy 3020 Imple-
mentation Plan (RE 3020)” in December 2017, which is a new energy mix
roadmap for Korea. The goal of this plan is to increase the share of renewable
energy to 20% by 2030. The meaning of the name of the RE 3020 plan is that
the first “30” means “by 2030”, and the latter “20” indicates “20%” of the
renewable energy target [9].
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870
next twenty years due to the Renewable Energy 3020 Implementation
Plan (RE 3020 Plan) dramatically. This plan aims to achieve 20%
renewable energy of the total electricity supply by 2030 [9].
2.2. Structure of national energy policies
The beginning of the energy policies in Korea started in 1974. The
Heat Control Act of 1974 was the first established energy law to improve
heat source management and eliminate energy waste [14]. After this,
the oil crisis in 1978 caused social concerns that led to a revision of the
Heat Control Act of 1974 toward the Energy Use Rationalization Act of
1979 [14] as well as credited with a new birth of renewable energy
policy called the Alternative Energy Development Promotion Act in
1988 [15].
Fig. 1 describes the structure and legal system of national energy
policy. In detail, the Energy Act [16] and the Framework Act on Low
Carbon, Green Growth (called the Green Growth Act) [17] provide a
primary legal basis for national energy plans in Korea. The Energy Act
aims to define various matters for planning and to enact national energy
policies and related energy plans to support the stable, efficient, and
environmental-friendly energy supply structure (Article 1). The Green
Growth Act, newly legislated in 2010 [18], is to assist the Low Carbon,
Green Growth policy as the national economic growth driver. The Green
Growth Act is the first law in response to climate change and to accel-
erate green energy installation and technology development in Korea.
This Act includes comprehensive articles for the principles of energy
policy (Article 39), the national climate change response plan (Article
40), energy target management (Article 42), and green building (Article
54).
The national plans specify the implementation plans and the targets
of the energy mix. The National Energy Basic Plan is the highest national
energy policy plan in the 5-year cycle and 20-year projection, which
began in 1997 [6]. The main contents of this plan are to forecast future
supply and demand of domestic energy and develop strategies for energy
security and management, renewable energies, greenhouse gases
reduction, energy safety, energy technology development, energy expert
training, an international collaboration of energy policy and environ-
mental policy, and domestic resources development. This plan also es-
tablishes a national target of energy management, which affects all
national sub-plans of energy policies. The sub-plans under the National
Energy Basic Plan are made up of two parts: Demand-side and
Supply-side. The gray-colored plans in Fig. 1 refer to the
renewable-related energy policies. On the demand side, the Energy Use
Rationalization Master Plan provides goals, visions, and tasks for
rational energy use as mid-to-long-term implementation strategies on
the demand side of the National Energy Basic Plan. On the supply-side,
seven sub-plans exist, but three sub-plans are mainly related to national
renewable energy policies, such as the Master Plan on Electricity De-
mand and Supply, the Master Plan on Renewable Energy Technology
Development and Diffusion, and Local Energy Plan. Master Plan on
Electricity Demand and Supply provides a long-term plan to supply
national electricity with an electricity demand outlook, which contains
national renewable energy goals. Renewable Energy Technology
Development and Diffusion has developed policy strategies for renew-
able energy, including industrial ecosystem, Renewable Energy Certifi-
cate (REC) market, regional development projects, and R&D. Lastly, the
Local Energy Plan is to support local governments in promoting local
energy development specialized in the regions.
2.3. Renewable energy 3020 target
Catching up with the global trends of renewable energy, the gov-
ernment of Korea gave shape to a plan of the Renewable Energy 3020
Implementation Plan (RE 3020 Plan) in 2017. The RE 3020 resolutely
increased the renewable energy goal by up to 20% of the total electricity
generation by 2030, as Fig. 2 [9]. This is a highly stringent goal to
C. Kim
Fig. 1. National energy policy systems and plans [16,17].
rebalance the future energy mix in Korea because, in 2016, renewable
energy accounted for only 2.2% on the IEA basis and 7.2% of the total
electricity generation [19].
According to the RE 3020 plan, a total of 48.7 GW of renewable
energy should be added in 2017–2030. 95% of new power constructions
will be made up of solar energy and wind power, which are 30.8 GW and
16.5 GW, respectively, in the building and power sectors. In the short-
term for 2018–2022, 0.7 GW of renewable energy is expected to be
installed in urban area buildings, and 3.3 GW would be built on the
detached houses in suburban regions. The other 8.4 GW will be added by
renewable projects. In the mid-and long-term of 2023–2030, 1.6 GW and
6.7 GW of renewable energies will be installed to urban and rural area
buildings, respectively. Also, 4.1 GW of new additions will be con-
structed by small-scale projects, and 23.8 GW will be planned by large-
scale projects. At the end of the RE 3020 plan, solar power and wind
power will account for 85% of the total renewable energy capacity [9].
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870
2.4. Previous renewable energy policies and plans
Over the last 30 years, the government has attempted to foster the
renewable industry and market with incentives and mandatory regula-
tions. Table 1 [6,8,20–23] summarizes the development process of
renewable energy policy since 1988. In 1988–1996, renewable energy
policy focused on R&D of fundamental technologies and pilot projects in
Korea. The first National Energy Basic Plan in 1997 played a critical role
in the systematic management of national energy policies and the
full-scale dispersion of renewable energy. In the introduction phase,
most renewable energies were generated by hydroelectric power and
waste power. Then, the Green Growth policy in 2008 placed renewable
energy at the front in national energy policies, including climate change
policy, building energy code, and electric power policy. The objective of
this policy was energy independent and de-petroleum energy society
and thereby planned 11% of the renewable energy target by 2030 [8].
Then, in 2017, the new administration enhanced renewable policy
C. Kim Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870

Fig. 2. Predicted shares of renewable energy capacity, 2016–2040 [9,20].

Table 1
The stages of national renewable energy policy development.
Projection Period Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4

1988–1996 1997–2007 2008–2016 2017-present

Market Stage Introduction Growth

Milestone • The first Alternative Energy • The first National Energy Basic • The Low Carbon, Green • The Renewable Energy 3020 Plan
Development Promotion Act Plan (1997) Growth policy (2008) (2017)
(1988)
R&D Goal • Research foundation construction • Core technologies development • Strategic R&D in four core • Support for privately led R&D to
• Technique commercialization renewables improve Renewable technologies
• Technology advancement
Industry/Market • Fundamental technology • Initial market creation • The growth of the private • Development of new business of
Goal development • Expanded renewable facility and voluntary markets renewables
• Demand development/pilot supply in the energy market • The stringent mandatory • Strengthened Support for
projects market goals distributed energy supplying system
• The inducement for market
competition
Renewable Energy • 0.6% by 1996 of total source • 2.7% by 2006 of the total source • 11.0% by 2035 of total • 25–40% by 2040 of total electricity
Dissemination Goal energy use [6] energy use [6] source energy use [22] generation [20]

targets to be more stringent, which made a significant shift toward
renewable energy dominant energy mix with strong political will.
There have been several policy measures for renewable energy
deployment in Korea. Table 2 describes the current deployment support
programs, financing and incentive programs, utility-scale and non-
utility scale renewables programs for power generations and buildings
[23,24]. The government has promoted large-scale solar PV and wind
power projects as well as regional renewable energy projects and plan-
ning for a quantitative increase in renewable capacity to meet the
RE3020 goal. In the same way, the RPS policy was implemented in 2012
that requires a specific fraction of renewable energy generations in
stages. This policy has created a mandatory renewable market since the
FIT termination in 2011. In building sectors, the policy measures are
subdivided into public buildings, residential buildings, non-residential
buildings, regional developments. The government imposed an obliga-
tion of renewable energy in public buildings or government-owned
buildings while the government offered partial support of the installa-
tion costs to the voluntary development in private buildings.
Table 3 describes the barriers to renewable energy deployment in the
previous literature. In history, the primary barriers in the introduction
stages were insufficient renewable energy technology capabilities and
industrial foundation as well as a lack of professional human resources.
Such weakness has been overcoming with continuous R&D and invest-
ment. However, large construction cost is still a chronic issue in Korea
even though the production price is unceasingly falling due to tech-
nology advancement, which requires more political supports, financial
incentives (i.e., tax exemption, subsidies), and investments from the
governments with the financial burden. Also, inconsistent policy shifts
and regulation barriers curbed private development demands due to the
negative influence of economic feasibility. Therefore, recently, the
government is attempting to introduce market-oriented regulations and
mandatory renewable installation requirements for power companies
and buildings to raise the renewable market volume and foster private-
led renewable energy development. Nonetheless, the National Energy
Basic Plan of 2019 appraised that renewable energy policy needs to
develop effective measures to deal with a worsening financial structure
in the government-owned companies (e.g., utility companies) due to
massive mandatory investment of renewables.
3. Key drivers and achievements of renewable energy policies
During the decades, there were numerous policy efforts to improve
practical applications. The government of Korea has introduced a vari-
ety of renewable policy measures to activate the renewable energy
market and private development. This Section identified key drivers of
renewable energy policies and their outcomes of renewable energy
deployment in Korea.

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C. Kim Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870

Table 2
Deployment policy measures for renewable energy in Korea.
Type Programs Overview

Deployment Large-scale solar and wind power The program accelerates to develop large-scale photovoltaic and wind power projects in collaboration with RPS mandatory
support development providers and public companies for expanding renewable energy supply.
programs Renewable energy site excavation The local government excavates potential sites and provides to private developers to encourage renewable development
and planning programs (e.g., renewable community development). The development profit is shared with local governments and local
residents.
Utility-scale Feed-in-tariff (FIT) The FIT policy provides 15- or 20-year long-term contracts to renewable energy producers to improve the economic feasibility
based on cost-based compensation of the reference price and system marginal price (SMP).
Renewable Portfolio Standard The RPS policy requires electric power companies to produce a specified portion of their electricity using renewable energy
(RPS) sources. The RPS goal in 2020 is 7.0%.
Non-utility Public buildings The program requires a mandatory specified faction of renewable energy use in public buildings. In 2020, at least 30% of the
scale estimated building energy use should be from renewable facilities if the government buildings have a gross floor area of over
1000㎡
Renewable homes Green home project. The partial support of the installation costs for self-use renewables in residential buildings (e.g., single
and multi-family homes)
Renewable buildings The partial support of the renewable installation costs for self-use in the non-residential buildings
Regional deployment Support partial installation costs of renewables in public facilities and properties owned by regional and local governments
(incl. social welfare facilities)
Financing and Finance support long-term low-interest loans of renewable facilities and manufacturers
incentives Tax credits Tax credits for renewable system production equipment and investment in renewable energy infrastructure

3.1. Feed-In-Tariff (FIT): 2002–2011
Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) is an effective policy measure in renewable en-
ergy policy, which compensates for the low profitability of renewable
energy investment. The differences in electricity production costs be-
tween renewable energy and fossil fuel power generation were
compensated for 15 or 20 years based on the standard prices (e.g., sys-
tem marginal price) for renewable facilities (e.g., wind, solar, waste, bio,
ocean energy). The government of Korea adopted the FIT in 2001 to
promote renewable energy development [14] and terminated the ser-
vice at the end of 2011. It was substituted with the Renewable Portfolio
Standard (RPS) [29].
The FITs provided a strong motivation for renewable energy in-
vestment in the 2000s, especially in waste, wind, and solar PV systems,
as shown in Table 4. With the financial aids of the FITs, new additions of
renewables reached about 512 MW at the end of 2011, which registered
87 times growth than 5.9 MW in 2003. Fig. 3 shows the FIT contribution
to renewable energy additions in 2004–2011. In renewable energy
sources, solar and wind power mainly benefited from the FITs. Solar PVs
were more installed than wind facilities, but the portion of solar and
wind systems varied by years [14,19]. The FITs provided different
subsidy rates by renewable system capacity, which was more beneficial
for small-scale renewable facilities (e.g., community participation pro-
jects, dispersed generations) due to higher FIT rates. Despite these
benefits, it brought a tremendous financial strain since the government
compensated the FIT projects from the government funds of power in-
dustries instead of utility fees, which made a failure of long-term
financing to support the FITs [30,31]. Thus, to reduce subsidy burden
and encourage market mechanisms, the government of Korea deter-
mined the termination of the FITs at the end of 2011 and introduced RPS
in 2012 as a regulation that requires minimum mandatory energy pro-
duction from eligible renewable energy sources in utility companies.
However, the dramatic policy shift from the FIT to the RPS was
criticized due to insufficient consensus with relevant stakeholders before
making a policy option. The FIT system has an advantage that allowed
energy producers to finance their facilities easily due to guaranteed
profitability for 15–20 years, which motivated private solar PV devel-
opment in Korea. Besides, it was useful to protect small-scale producers
(e.g., less than100W) because of the low bidding cost. If the bidding cost
is low, large-scale producers are easy to make more profits [7,26,28]. In
a study of economic efficiency between the RPS and the FIT, the result
showed that the FIT was a more effective policy in non-photovoltaic
energy (e.g., wind power, bio-energy, and fuel cells) in the govern-
ment’s perspective. However, in the energy producers’ perspective, the
FIT was more efficient for solar PV, whereas the RPS was better for
non-solar PV [32].
As a result, the FIT was temporarily reinstated in July 2018 for small-
scale solar PV projects during the next five years [33]. With the RE 3020
plan, a necessity of the FIT arose to accomplish 20% of renewable energy
generation of the total electricity by 2030. The target of the new FIT is
solar PV projects less than 30 kW by whoever or less than 100 kW by
workers and persons interested in agriculture, stockbreeding, and fish-
ery industries or cooperative unions. New FIT is to settle the problems of
small-scale renewable projects about complex RPS process, low acces-
sibility to renewable program information, and aggravation of profit-
ability due to depreciation in the standard price. The contract of the new
FIT allows assuring stable profit with a fixed price system in 20 years and
requires no process for Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) [34].
3.2. Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS): 2012-present
Currently, RPS is the most potent driver to promote new power
plants using renewable energy systems. Renewable Portfolio Standard
(RPS) in Korea enforces power producers and utility companies to
generate a particular portion of the total energy electricity from
renewable energy sources that refer to solar PV, wind power, hydro-
power, fuel cell, ocean energy, bioenergy, and other energies prescribed
by the government of Korea. The government introduced the RPS policy
in 2012 to encourage competition between renewable energy sources
and to alleviate the financial strain of the FIT policy [25]. As of 2018, the
total twenty-one companies that are operating over a total of 500 MW of
power plants must meet an obligatory supply rate of the RPS. The RPS
targets have gradually strengthened from 2% in 2012 to 10% in 2023
[14].
The RPS contributed to 9,362 MW new additions in 25,754 projects
from 2012 to 2017. This achievement was nine times higher than the
new capacity additions (approx. 1,042 MW) by the FIT program be-
tween 2002 and 2011. Especially, the RPS has mostly contributed to
solar and wind power increases that have accounted for at least 75% of
annual solar and wind additions since 2012, as shown in Fig. 4 [14,35]
and Table 5. Moreover, in 2017, solar and wind power led to 84.5% of
RPS demand. The energy providers have considerably improved the RPS

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Table 3
Challenges of renewable energy distribution in Korea.
Section Policy Barriers Reference

[7] [25] [6] [21] [22] [11] [26] [27] [28]

Policy • Inconsistent policy shift O O O

• Insufficient support scheme ex) policy measure, rebate, incentive, tax exemption, REC O O O O O
trading
• Poorly coordinated government activity O O
• Unsystematic monitoring O
• Regulatory barriers O O
• Lack of willingness to provide institutional support ex) conservative RE target O O
• Creating renewable energy market(e.g., FIT, RPS, private development) O O O
Development • Low economic feasibility ex) high construction cost O O
• Poor generation efficiency O
• Frequent breakdown & maintenance issues O
• Local resident participation & complaints O O
• Limited space for installations in buildingsex) roof, parking lot O
• Low electricity price O
• Necessity of backup system O
• Greenfield destruction O
Industry • Immature technology level O O O
• Limitation of domestic product production O O O O
• Lack of professional human resources O O
• Low economic contribution of renewable energy in domestic economy growth O

Table 4
Feed-In-Tariff project electricity generation and financial aid [14].
Hydro Landfill gas Wind Solar Fuel Cell Biogas Biomass Waste Total

Projects 32 8 15 1976 3 2 1 – 2037

Electricity generation (GWh) 3567 4013 7529 5954 1161 62 106 16 22,407
FIT total (Millions $) 35.9 20.3 57.2 2583.1 139.1 0.5 0.4 0.1 2836.5

* Even though the FITs interrupted policy enforcement in 2011, the payment for previous FIT projects continues for financial support.
FIT electricity generation and financial payment are accumulative values as of the end of 2017.
* New FIT for small-scale solar PV since July 2018 is not contained.
* Currency exchange rate: $1.0 = 1,150KRW

Fig. 3. FIT accumulated contribution to renewable energy additions in 2004–2011 [19].

implementations in the last six years, as Fig. 4. The implementation rate
of the RPS peaked at 92.7% in 2017 from 64.7% in 2012.
However, the RPS program also revealed the problems. The obliga-
tions of the RPS were imposed only on large-scale electricity companies.
It should be expanded to companies that emit large amounts of carbon
dioxide and companies that consume more energy in order to provide
more renewable energy in the market and divide the burden of social
costs evenly [28]. Also, under the RPS system, the allocation of the
minimum quantity of total energy generation using renewable sources
benefits large-scale electricity companies from the wholesale electricity

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Fig. 4. RPS accumulated contribution and annual implementation rate in renewable electricity generations in 2012–2017.

Table 5
Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) capacity additions and goals (Unit: MW) [14,23,37].
’12 ’13 ’14 ’15 ’16 ’17 ’18 ’19 Total

Solar 244 389 864 986 803 1120 1897 1091 7395
Wind 96 80 66 228 128 129 168 133 1027
Others 1628 429 805 214 584 558 883 136 5237
Total 1968 898 1735 1427 1515 1808 2947 1360 13,658

RPS goal 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 5.0% 6.0% 10% (’23)

RPS execution 64.7% 67.2% 78.1% 90.1% 90.5% 92.9% N/A N/A –

* ‘12 RPS data includes the RPS pilot projects in the 2009–2011 period. The pilot projects installed a total of 101 MW of solar PVs.
* ‘19P: new RPS capacity additions as of the end of May 2019.
* Others refer to other new and renewable sources (i.e., hydro, bio, waste, fuel cell, IGCC) except solar and wind power prescribed by the government of Korea.
* Final data of renewable energy for 2018 will be announced at the end of 2019 by the Korea Energy Agency.

price and renewable energy certificate (REC) trading. In contrast, it is
difficult for small-scale companies to ensure the sales of RECs [7]. Thus,
Kwon (2018, 2020) found that there is a synergy effect of the policy mix
(e.g., RPS, FIT, auctions) to compensate for shortcomings in spreading
renewable energies of the RPS system in Korea. The FIT can alleviate the
price risk problems of RPS [26,36].
Also, the current RPS policy target of 10% of total power generations
will be achieved within the next four years. However, future RPS targets
for extending the periods and goals are not confirmed yet. Without
additional RPS plans, after 2023, the renewable market would lose the
most significant market driver due to the termination of the RPS
renewable energy quota [38–43].
3.3. Renewable building programs
Another potential demand for renewable energy is in the building
sector. The building is one of the largest energy consumers. The gov-
ernment of Korea has revised building energy codes to eliminate energy
waste and improve energy efficiency in buildings. As a final destination,
the zero energy building plan [44] will be mandatory between 2020 and
2030, which will require near zero-energy buildings using onsite or
off-site renewable energy to meet the requirements for zero energy.
Therefore, renewable energy will get more attention to provide energy
solutions for zero energy buildings in Korea.
There are two major subsidy programs in the building sector for
residential buildings and non-residential buildings (i.e., commercial
buildings) in Korea. The Green Home is a representative renewable
building program operated by the Korea Energy Agency (KEA) for res-
idential buildings (i.e., detached houses, apartments) to improve resi-
dential energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions using
renewable energy sources. In this program, the government of Korea
supports a specific portion of the installation costs in renewable systems.
Prior to 2009, the Green Home could be applied only in solar PV for
residential buildings, which aimed at 100 thousand solar residential
homes by 2012. However, with the start of the Low Carbon, Green
Growth policy in 2009, this program included other NRE systems (i.e.,
wind, geothermal, solar thermal, fuel cell), and raised a subsidy program
goal to one million homes by 2020. However, as of 2019, a total of
408,789 residential units received the government grant from 2003 to
2018 to install renewable systems. The achievement rate of this program
recorded only 40.8%, which is still far away from the policy target [23].
From the past policy, several barriers have been revealed in this
program. For example, the different construction costs depending on
renewable energy contractors imposed a strain on homeowners, which
made them hesitate renewable energy investment or pay more money
when installing renewable systems on their houses due to uncertain
profitability calculations [14]. Also, in performance monitoring [11],
2473 participants in the Green Home program reported an average of
64% generation efficiency in 2007. The low electricity production effi-
ciency in the Green Homes deteriorated the profitability of renewable
systems than the initial investment plans and extended a payback period
of solar PV installations longer. For example, the proposed models from
the government predicted that a 3 kW of solar PV home could reach a
break-even point within 8.4–12.6 years, depending on monthly utility
uses. However, the observed found that 81% of the Green Home pro-
gram participants were over-estimated in payback periods than the
government estimates. The payback periods were re-estimated a 1.6–5.8
year longer than initial plans due to low electricity productivity. Also,
only 30% of Green Homes could recover their investment within 12
years, and 39% of the Green Home participants were required over 20
years to return their construction cost. Also, in high-rise multi-family
apartment complexes, there are also large restrictions on installation

7
C. Kim
locations for renewable systems. In general, the roofs of high-rise resi-
dential buildings and community facilities, or the envelope of
multi-family apartments, are used, but the installed capacity and power
generation are not large to fill the power consumption of the apartment
complexes. In addition, shadows caused by adjacent buildings in urban
spaces are also a factor that lowers renewable energy generation
efficiency.
As to non-residential buildings, 269.9 million dollars were invested
in 4430 projects from 1993 to 2017, as Table 6 [23]. Geothermal sys-
tems have been the most preferred renewable energy source in
non-residential buildings because the installation of this system does not
take a large area in the building site, which is a decisive advantage in the
urban area constructions. Also, the stringent requirement from the
government (i.e., Regulations on the Promotion of Energy Use Ration-
alization by Public Institutions [45]) has accelerated the spread of
geothermal system since public buildings with a total floor area of 1,000
m2 or more have to install renewable energy systems to meet the min-
imum supply rate based on the total building use in buildings (i.e., 2020,
30%). Wind system was rarely used due to noise, siting problems, and
low wind power potential in the built environment. In 2014, the
increasing use of solar energy made a crossing point with geothermal
energy, and it now became the largest renewable energy provider in
non-residential buildings, accounting for 39% of the total renewable
energy generation in 2017. According to the National Assembly Budget
Office (NABO) [11], renewable systems represented 76% and 70% of
generation efficiency in 2007 and 2008, respectively, in non-residential
buildings. This result indicates that renewable efficiency in
non-residential buildings is still low in power productivity than the ex-
pected, even though the performance was slightly better than residential
homes.
On the other hand, the public building under the government has to
comply with a mandatory renewable energy target in governmental
regulations. The Regulations on Energy Use Rationalization of Public
Buildings mandates that new constructions and retrofits of the
government-owned or public buildings over 1,000 m2 of total building
area must meet a mandatory minimum percentage of onsite renewable
energy generation or the use from the qualified renewable energy sys-
tems. The mandatory goal of onsite renewables is to increase the
renewable energy portion from 10% to 30% of predicted annual energy
consumption by 2020, which was a tightened amendment in 2014 as
Table 7 [14]. Also, zero energy building policy starts to be effective in
2020 that enforces mandatory requirements for public buildings over 1,
000 m2 of total building area that must meet zero energy building per-
formance as following the codes (i.e., Green Buildings Construction
Support Act, Zero Energy Building Certification, Regulations on the
Promotion of Energy Use Rationalization by Public Institutions)
[44–46]. For code-compliance, more renewable energy consumption
from onsite or off-site facilities will be required to satisfy the mandatory
renewable energy target and zero energy performance in public build-
ings. Therefore, the recent stringency of national renewable policy goals
will help to enforce the spreading of renewable energy in public build-
ings of the state administrative bodies, local autonomous entities, and
government-run institutes.
Table 8 details renewable energy capacity and generations by source
types in public buildings [14]. Between 2004 and 2017, the
government-owned and public buildings had submitted 5459 installa-
tion plans and received subsidies of approximately 5.9% of the entire
building construction cost. Public buildings produced an average of
14.3% of the estimated total building energy consumption from
renewable sources. However, there is a critical problem in increasing
policy targets in renewable energy. According to Bang (2017) [47],
public buildings suffered from limited site areas for onsite renewable
system installations and low economic feasibility to return initial in-
vestment cost. Besides, even though solar PVs were the mostly installed
renewable energy system type in the case studies, the installation places
were typically found on building roofs and parking lots due to a lack of
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870
exterior spaces for renewable constructions. Selecting and securing
enough sites of renewable systems are a severe matter in urban regions,
especially in high-density society (i.e., Korea) to attain enhanced
mandatory renewable targets in buildings [47].
4. Discussions of renewable development in Korea
Renewable policies have dedicated to renewable energy develop-
ment and diffusion in Korea. However, for effective policy operations,
there is still a long journey to go. This chapter discussed the observations
of policy barriers from the past renewable energy policies to improve
renewable energy policies in Korea.
4.1. Optimistic outlook of renewable energy development
The most common failure of renewable developments is an opti-
mistic outlook. It is still ongoing in the government’s renewable policy
and plan. Fig. 5 and Table 9 illustrate the accumulated solar PV and
wind capacities and capacity factors2 to represent solar and wind gen-
eration efficiencies [35]. The range of a capacity factor of solar PV be-
tween 2006 and 2017 was around 10%–15%, and wind capacity factor
was approximately 14%–26%. The average monthly solar power gen-
eration peaked 105 kWh/kW-month in 2011, and the lowest was only
66 kWh/kW-month in 2008. In wind power, the maximum electricity
generation occurred in 2010, which was 186 kWh/kW-month, and the
minimum electricity generation in the wind was only 105
kWh/kW-month in 2006. Also, the average capacity factor of solar PV in
2006–2017 was 12.0%, and wind power recorded 20.7% in the same
period. However, a government reference home for renewable building
programs assumes that 3 kW solar PV in a residential building would
generate 321 kWh/month for investment payback calculations [48]. To
achieve this performance, solar PV has to produce at least 107
kW/kW-month, and the capacity factor must be at least a monthly
average of 14.38%. However, the result from Fig. 5 and Table 9 shows
that the average monthly generation and capacity factor in solar PV and
wind had not met the minimum performance of the proposed renewable
building programs from the government. This implies that the govern-
ment reference model for determining renewable grants is wishful and it
has mismatch between theory and reality.
In addition, Fig. 6 [35] shows the 2017 regional solar PV generation
data that most metropolitan regions and major states except Busan and
Jeonnam could not generate sufficient electricity to surpass 14.38% of
capacity factor as required in the government residential model to reach
break-even point within seven years. Also, solar power represented
fewer regional differences in monthly generations and efficiencies.
However, wind power revealed that selecting the most favorable loca-
tions is a critical determinant in electricity generations and efficiencies.
Therefore, to encourage sustainable renewable energy development, it is
imperative to develop more realistic reference models and financial aid
programs (i.e., tax exemption, subsidies, and incentives) depending on
regions and installation owners (e.g., utility-scale, non-utility scale) to
reduce a gap from existing renewable energy projects.
On the other hand, generation intermittency and unpredictability
raise projection uncertainties in renewable energy development [49].
Most renewable energy projects have suffered from electricity genera-
tion intermittency due to environmental and technical issues (e.g.,
weather, urban building obstruction). For example, Tables 10–11 and
Fig. 7 present the status of three utility-scale solar PV projects using
public data [50] in Korea. Long-term monitoring of solar PV projects in
2016–2017 showed daily and seasonal changes in electricity
2
Capacity factor: “The ratio of the electrical energy produced by a generating
unit for the period of time considered to the electrical energy that could have
been produced at continuous full power operation during the same period”
[70].
C. Kim Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870

Table 6
Renewable energy generations of the non-residential building program (Unit: toe).
’93-’10 ’11 ’12 ’13 ’14 ’15 ’16 ’17 ’18 Total (%)

Solar PV 3709 418 721 1103 1574 1746 1885 1964 5009 18,129 27.4%
Solar Thermal 4200 859 920 560 747 410 302 412 739 10,548 16.0%
Geothermal 12,259 1583 2041 2062 1669 1524 1275 925 963 22,902 34.7%
Wind 168 0 101 0 0 0 0 0 0 269 0.4%
Bio 6989 340 88 0 441 0 581 1449 1606 11,494 17.4%
Fuel Cell 40 29 101 306 614 474 479 293 383 2719 4.1%

Total 27,365 3229 3972 4031 5045 4154 4522 5043 8700 66,061 100.0%

renewable energy installations and operations in Korea.

Table 7
Annual renewable mandatory targets of government and public buildings.
’14 ’15 ’16 ’17 ’18 ’19 ’20 ~ 4.2. Difficulties of large-scale development and renewable energy site
selection
Before April 2014 (%) 12.0 13.0 14.0 15.0 16.0 18.0 20.0
Present (%) 12.0 15.0 18.0 21.0 24.0 27.0 30.0
In the renewable energy project, the development scale is an
imperative determinant of power generation sizes and economic effects.
generations, which was varying and different compared to the same It would also affect renewable energy generation efficiency and opera-
period the previous year. The standard deviations (i.e., S.D.) were 25%– tion & maintenance (O&M) cost due to strengths in cost-cutting from
70% of daily average solar PV output per 1 kW. The variations of solar construction to operation phases. Moreover, large-scale power plants are
PV capacity factor were 10%–20% in the G-distribution center, 12%– advantageous in government entities and utility companies to achieve
27% in D-warehouse, and 7%–19% in U-power plant roof PV. Inconsis- national renewable energy goals and develop utility-scale renewable
tent power generations of renewable energy may require increased in- facilities.
vestment to design back systems in utility companies to supply stable However, for the sizeable utility-scale development, large sites and
electricity during day and night or different seasons. hospitable environment are an essential prerequisite. For example, top
Therefore, although there are many obstacles and limitations in solar capacity and generation counties of solar PV (i.e., the U.S., China, India,
PV and wind power developments, preferentially, it should take effort to Australia) in 2018 [52] possess vast national territories over 30–100
avoid an optimistic outlook in generation performance estimations times larger than Korea [53] and used large positive geographical and
when planning renewable projects. Recently, the building grant pro-
gram in Seoul proposed more realistic reference models, assuming 3.2 Table 9
generation hours/day and 96 kWh/kW∙month, which can improve the Solar and wind average unit output per month.
economic feasibility of renewable energy projects in residential and non-
residential buildings [51]. Also, the government should develop more
’06 ’08 ’10 ’12 ’14 ’16 ’17

realistic reference models of renewable energy programs for building Solar PV (kWh/kW∙month) 72 66 99 90 86 95 101
Wind power (kWh/ 105 162 186 155 144 136 158
owners and marker leaders based on existing projects to overcome an
kW∙month)
inherent weakness of renewable power and to encourage desirable

Table 8
Renewable energy capacity and generation in public buildings as of 2017.
Solar PV Solar Thermal Geothermal Daylight collector Waste Fuel Cell Total
2 2
Renewable capacity 275,202 kW 1,036,653 kW 55,183 m 1456 m 3,238,470 kcal/h 911 kW –
Tons of oil equivalent 84,050 182,918 3531 – 411 1449 272,360

Fig. 5. Accumulated solar and wind capacities and annual generation performance.

9
C. Kim Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870

Fig. 6. Monthly solar PV and wind generations (top) and annual capacity factors (bottom) by region.

Table 10
Summary of utility-scale solar PV projects.
Project Installation Date Location Type Capacity Utility Company

G distribution center 2014.06 Gwangyang Fixed 1100 kW Korea East⋅West Power Co., Ltd
D-warehouse 2012.12 Dangjin Fixed 520 kW Korea East⋅West Power Co., Ltd
U-power plant roof PV 2011.03 Ulsan Fixed 500 kW Korea East⋅West Power Co., Ltd

Table 11
Normalized daily average electricity generations in solar PV projects.
G distribution center D-warehouse U-power plant roof PV

2017 2016 2017 2016 2017 2016

Average S.D.a Average S.D.a Average S.D.a Average S.D.a Average S.D.a Average S.D.a

Jan 3.3 1.1 2.4 1.2 3.3 1.5 3.0 1.3 2.5 1.1 2.6 1.3
Feb 4.2 1.3 3.9 1.5 4.9 2.0 4.3 2.0 3.6 1.2 3.5 1.2
Mar 4.4 1.5 4.3 1.8 5.8 1.4 5.5 1.8 3.0 1.3 3.5 1.7
Apr 4.6 1.7 3.9 2.0 6.1 2.0 5.3 2.0 4.2 1.7 3.8 1.9
May 4.9 1.6 4.6 1.9 6.6 1.6 6.0 2.2 4.4 1.4 4.5 1.6
Jun 4.3 1.6 3.6 1.8 5.9 1.8 5.3 2.1 4.4 1.1 3.6 1.6
Jul 3.4 1.6 3.8 1.6 3.8 2.3 4.4 2.1 1.9 1.3 3.6 1.5
Aug 4.0 1.3 4.6 1.1 3.5 2.2 5.5 1.6 3.8 1.3 4.2 1.3
Sep 3.8 1.5 3.2 1.7 4.9 1.7 4.5 1.5 3.5 1.5 1.8 1.2
Oct 3.3 1.4 2.7 1.4 4.3 1.6 3.3 1.9 2.6 1.3 1.7 1.0
Nov 3.2 0.9 2.9 1.4 3.5 1.3 3.4 1.6 2.9 0.8 1.8 0.9
Dec 3.0 0.8 2.6 1.3 3.1 1.3 2.9 1.7 2.6 0.9 1.8 0.9

Avg 3.9 1.4 3.5 1.6 4.6 1.7 4.5 1.8 3.3 1.2 3.0 1.3
Max 4.9 1.7 4.6 2.0 6.6 2.3 6.0 2.2 4.4 1.7 4.5 1.9
Min 3.0 0.8 2.4 1.1 3.1 1.3 2.9 1.3 1.9 0.8 1.7 0.9
Diff 1.9 0.9 2.1 0.9 3.4 0.9 3.1 0.9 2.6 0.8 2.8 1.1
Diff (%) 62% 118% 86% 75% 109% 71% 105% 67% 139% 102% 160% 123%
a
S.D.: Standard Deviation, Unit: kWh/kW∙day.

climatological regions to develop large-scale solar and wind power
plants. In detail, in the U.S., large desert areas (e.g., Chihuahuan desert,
Mojave desert) can ensure low land-development costs and maximized
daytime duration for solar power generations, which can lead to
improving the economic efficiency of the investment through large-scale
renewable projects. Also, Texas – ranked first of installed wind capacity
in the U.S. [54] has many friendly places for wind power in northwest
regions, which could offer over 7.5 m/s of annual wind speeds at an 80
m height [55].
On the contrary, the climate and topography in Korea are very
restricted. The country has four seasons in different climate character-
istics (i.e., hot and humid summer, cold and dry winter). A violent
change of annual solar and wind sources by time and region is one of the
critical obstacles [49]. According to the Korea Energy Agency [56], the
national market potential3 of solar PV is 321 GW, which is equivalent to
3
Market potential is a practical renewable energy potential in market level
which contains theoretical and technical influential factors as well as legislative
regulations and economic feasibility.

10
C. Kim
Fig. 7. Long-term generation data of solar power projects in 2016–2017.
power capacity that can generate 77.9% of total power generation in
2015. Also, the domestic market potential of onshore and offshore wind
power is a total of 38.7 GW, which is only 5.2% of the overall technical
potential.4 Of them, the government is planning to develop 3 GW of
onshore wind power and 13 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 [25].
Fig. 8 depicts local solar PV and onshore/offshore wind market poten-
tials using the ratios of the market-level to technical-level renewable
potentials [56]. Solar energy potential showed the possibility to be na-
tionally used to spread renewable facilities, while onshore wind power
represented small amounts of available potential that is equal to 5.2% of
solar PV’s market-level potential. Also, in metropolitan regions (i.e.,
Incheon, Ulsan) or particular regions (i.e., Gyeongbuk, Jeonnam), wind
power can be used only for small-scale projects. Such a fact represents
that wind power development would not be appropriate in most do-
mestic regions, and the attempts to develop large-scale wind farms
would be challenging in Korea.
However, in the governmental plan, the RE 3020 target planned a
total of 16.5 GW of new wind power and 30.8 GW of new solar PVs by
2030 [9]. This goal requires the intensive development of renewable
energy potential and national territory to achieve the national renew-
able energy target. Moreover, since market potential outlook included
already developed urban areas, manufacturing areas, agricultural areas,
and stock farming areas, available development areas for renewable
projects would be really smaller than the predicted potential calcula-
tions. In detail, Kim and Ham [57] estimated the required area of solar
PV development to install 27.2 GW after 2019 to achieve the renewable
goal by 2030. The result estimated 724 km2 to 2072 km2, which is
equivalent to 0.7%–2.1% of the total national territory [58]. This result
indicates that renewable targets of solar PV would be over-planning in
the geographic and environmental conditions in Korea that enforce a
vast land-use for renewable energy development. Therefore, careful
4
Technical potential reflects geographical and technical influential factors to
install wind turbines. For example, geographical influential factors include in-
formation of river, wetland, degree of slope, landslide, topography and others.
11
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870
planning and policy support are important to develop nationwide large
utility-scale wind farms in the low potential and solar PV in limited
available national areas. Non-rich renewable potential and limited na-
tional territory can be a robust obstructive factor of renewable energy
policy in Korea.
For renewables in buildings, the application and installation
methods are very restricted from site selection to operation and main-
tenance (O&M) to generate electricity or thermal energy. The govern-
ment of Korea planned 2.4 GW of non-utility scale renewable
development in residential and commercial buildings by 2030. The plan
aims to install solar PVs in 1.56 million homes by 2030 [9]. To
accomplish the goal in the building sector, the government expanded
financial supports (e.g., grant, rebate, incentive) and tightened renew-
able related codes. For example, in building energy codes [59],
governmental and public buildings must meet the minimum rate of
renewable energy installation or use from qualified facilities. Zero en-
ergy building (ZEB) certification will be mandatory in phases from
public buildings in 2020 to all types of building in 2030. This policy will
require additional renewable energy systems in the market to cover total
building energy demand and mandatory requirements [9]. At the local
government level, the city of Seoul enacted a mandate of mandatory
solar PV systems for large-scale new construction and retrofits in 2018.
This revised mandate required that a minimum of 16% of total building
energy use should be from renewable energy sources. Also, 20% of
renewable capacity or annual generation must use solar PV for
code-compliance [60] Likewise, the enforcement of new regulations
related to renewable energy in buildings will impose a new liability for
many building developers and owners.
Fig. 9 represents annual solar PV and wind power additions using the
RPS program by facility size in Korea [39]. The annual trends showed
that solar PV projects under 1 MW had dominated new power additions,
while wind power projects larger than 1 MW had dominated in
2012–2018. The annual wind power additions were always much
smaller than solar PV due to several obstacles (e.g., low wind potential,
limited site selection, noise). The total capacity of large-scale wind farms
over 1 MW was only 13.3 MW, and the total capacity of large-scale solar
C. Kim
Fig. 8. National market potentials of solar PV and wind power in Korea.
Fig. 9. Annual solar PV and wind farm additions of RPS by facility size.
PV plants over 1 MW was only 2.5 MW in 2012–2018 [39]. As of 2017,
only seven utility-scale solar PV plants and eighty-six utility-scale wind
farms were over 40 MW in Korea. Averages of utility-scale solar PV and
wind power over 40 MW were 74.4 MW and 87.4 MW, respectively [61].
The results [39,61] displayed that large-scale development has not
taken the lead for solar PV and wind farm deployment in Korea. For
instance, in comparison with Texas that is a wind top-ranked state in the
U.S., the average capacity of completed wind farms was 155.7 MW, and
the completed solar PV plant was an average of 55.0 MW in 1995–2018
[62]. Contrastively, in Korea, the average capacity of RPS wind farms
was 13.3 MW, and the solar PV plant was an average of 0.18 MW be-
tween 2012 and 2018 [39]. When considering renewable development
in Texas, the current project scales in Korea were much smaller.
Therefore, when considering renewable potential and limited national
territory environment to achieve national renewable goals, the gov-
ernment of Korea should drive the massive diffusion of renewable en-
ergies using renewable policy measures. For example, the development
of unused public lands or greenbelt zones can be alternatives to reduce
initial construction costs and secure large-scale land for utility com-
panies and developers.
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870
4.3. Quantitative supply-oriented renewable building programs
The financial grant programs for residential and commercial build-
ings (i.e., Green Homes) in Section 3.3 and other government subsidy
programs have dedicated to non-utility scale renewable energy diffusion
in the building sector. However, the actual effect of renewable energy
policy might have been over-inflated in the process of policy enforce-
ment as the result of Fig. 10 [23]. The quantitative supply-oriented
renewable policy would have led to the decline of project size in resi-
dential and commercial buildings. Previous government report [11]
found that renewable homes using governmental subsidy increased from
310 homes in 2004 to 14,895 homes in 2009, while solar PV capacity per
home decreased from 2.94 kW in 2004 to 0.91 kW in 2009. This report
pointed out that the target of renewable energy distribution in total
capacity. For example, the trend of subsidies per project in Fig. 10 and
the average size per project in Table 12 show the problem of the current
quantity-oriented policy-the decrease in subsidy cost and capacity per
project in residential and non-residential buildings. Notably, the sizes of
most solar PVs in residential homes were less than 1kW/project [23,48,
63–65], which indicates that although renewable building programs
have contributed to more renewable energy use, the renewable system
C. Kim Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870

Fig. 10. Renewable building program outcomes as of the end of 2018 [14,23].

Table 12
Solar PV dissemination using renewable building programs in residential buildings.
1993–2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Aver-age

# of Residential Homes 73,684 35,602 52,356 31,658 14,304 15,665 27,448 42,955 115,117 25,549
Avg. Subsidy per Project ($/project) 4378 2155 1619 1785 3372 2811 1387 800 646 3100
Construction cost ($/kW) 4913 4913 3400 – 2609 – 2261 – 1826 4178
Avg. Capacity per project (kW/project) 0.89 0.44 0.48 – 1.29 – 0.61 – 0.35 0.79

* Construction costs were of fixed solar PV in residential homes, which was based on the government-set official price (2010–2012) [63–65] and government estimate
costs (2010–2018) [48]. 1993–2010 construction cost is a 2010 construction cost basis.
* Avg. Capacity per projects (kW/project) = Avg. Subsidy per Project ($/project)/Construction cost ($/kW).
* Currency exchange rate: $1.0 = 1,150KRW

capacity was very tiny and not sufficient to cover entire electricity de-
mands in residential buildings. In statistics, the average monthly elec-
tricity use of the residential unit was 221kW/household in 2017 [66]. To
supply electricity demand using renewable systems in the residential
unit, at least 2–3 kW of solar PV should be installed per household.
Besides, in the current Green Home program, the program goal fo-
cuses only on the quantitative supply of total project numbers without
the considerations of renewable capacity and actual operation status (e.
g., economic feasibility, efficiency). For example, in the typical resi-
dence type in Korea, the quantitative supply-oriented policy is an easy-
to-go approach to achieve the policy goal. High-rise apartment is the
most common residence type in Korea. The apartment made up 61.4% of
the total households in 2018 [67], and 73.3% of apartment units were
high-raised over 15-story buildings in 2017 [59]. In a high-density
apartment complex, the available installation places for renewable en-
ergy systems are very restricted, such as parking lots, building enve-
lopes, and rooftop spaces. The small available site area inevitably
restricted renewable capacity within the apartment complex. Thus,
when the apartment installed solar PV systems in the apartment com-
plex, the renewable systems are typically installed on the roofs or on the
envelope per household, which can be separately counted in the Green
Home program. This fact can make local government officers or related
authority officers pay attention to the quantitative supply in renewable
building programs. Contrastively, the current policy has neglected the
monitoring and maintenance of building renewables. The number of
breakdowns was 14,314 in 2013–2017, which was 23.1% of the total
new non-utility scale installations in renewable building programs [68].
To supplement the defect in the current renewable building programs, a
qualitative target of renewable system diffusion should also be
addressed in the renewable building programs.
In terms of non-residential buildings, Bang (2017) conducted a case
study of mandatory renewable regulation applications in ten public
buildings, including public medical, residential, research, and library
facilities. Solar PV occupied 76.92% of the total renewable capacity in
the case buildings. The geothermal systems and solar thermal systems
were 15.38% and 7.69% separately. 76.92% of installation places were
the rooftop spaces, 15.38% was the building site, and 7.69% was built on
parking lot roofs. 53.85% of renewable systems were constructed on the
buildings, and 46.15% of renewable systems were installed outside of
the building sites (i.e., adjacent buildings or other sites). The primary
reason is the lack of available places for renewable systems in public
building sites [47]. This siting difficulty seriously constricted public
buildings to develop renewable systems on the sites to meet the
increasing mandatory rates of renewable energy in the government
policy. Without the policy flexibility to meet the mandatory requirement
(e.g., green energy purchase), a simple quantitative target increase in
renewable regulations could cause an impractical plan to meet renew-
able code-compliance in public buildings, which can give rise to indis-
criminate development to add just new renewable energy capacity
without the considerations of generation efficiency and profits.
Therefore, renewable building programs in urban regions need to
develop renewable development guidelines for the installation and
optimization to ensure minimum capacity factor and electricity pro-
duction for initial investment return.

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C. Kim
5. Conclusion and policy implications
Renewable energy has driven a global society as a counteroffer of
traditional fossil energies. However, in spite of endeavors over the past
decades, there are still numerous struggles to deploy renewable energy
systems in power plants and buildings. Therefore, this study identified
the current status and impact of renewable energy policies to improve
renewable energy policy measures and operations in Korea.
This study explored three policy drivers in renewable systems,
including RPS, FIT, and building programs. Currently, the largest
contributor to renewable energy deployment was the Renewable Port-
folio Standard (RPS) that compels power producers and utility com-
panies to generate or use a mandatory percentage of the total energy
electricity from renewable sources, such as solar PV, wind power, hy-
dropower, fuel cell, ocean energy, bioenergy and other energies
legislated by the government of Korea. The RPS has created a mandatory
renewable market and provided most solar and wind power additions
after the FIT program terminated since 2012. However, the government
did not announce a blueprint for the RPS after 2020 yet. Therefore, to
continue playing a critical role in renewable energy, the enhanced RPS
goal should be suggested to tighten up renewable energy deployment,
and also, the RPS policy period should be extended to 2030 to meet a
long-term renewable plan in the RE3020.
The FIT was another significant contributor in 2001–2011 as an
initial market pioneer, which created early renewable energy markets by
compensating initial construction costs. Solar and wind power facilities
mainly benefited from FITs, especially in small-scale renewable energy
facilities (i.e., community participation projects). Despite this advan-
tage, a tremendous financial burden from the government funds made it
terminated at the end of 2011 and then been substituted as the RPS since
2012. However, due to the societal need to complement the current RPS
policy and accomplish the RE 3020 goal, the FIT was temporarily re-
introduced in 2018 for small-scale solar PV projects.
Renewable building programs have devoted to the extensive use of
renewable systems in residential and non-residential buildings by
distributing government subsidies. Between 2003 and 2017, 293,672
residential units had used the Green Home program to install renewable
systems. However, this was only 29.3% of the achievement rate of the
Green Home target by 2020 [14]. In the non-residential renewable en-
ergy program, 4430 non-residential projects participated from 1993 to
2017. Solar PV was the largest renewable source in renewable buildings
[14]. In public buildings, the Regulations on Energy Use Rationalization
of Public Buildings [69] mandates a mandatory renewable energy target
at least 30% renewable energy of annual energy consumption by 2020.
However, the current policy of public buildings does not offer further
extended plans of mandatory goals after 2020. Moreover, the previous
article reported that many renewable buildings suffered from low gen-
eration efficiency than what they expected in initial plans [11], which
deteriorated the profitability of renewable projects.
Base on the literature review, significant challenges were discussed
in the current renewable energy policy as below.
• The optimistic outlook of renewable projects
• Difficulties of large-scale development and site selection in wind
power and solar PV
• Physically available space restraints of renewable installations in
buildings
• Quantitative supply-oriented renewable policies
(1) In Korea, many renewable energy projects failed to reach the
projected generation efficiency in initial development plans. The
measured performance in 81% of the Green Homes showed that
the government estimates for payback periods were over-
estimated [11]. In actual generation data, most metropolitan
cities and states in 2017 recorded smaller capacity factors than
the recent government reference models for non-utility scale
solar PV except Busan and Jeonnam [35,48]. The optimistic
14
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870
outlook in government models may cause a mismatch between
the proposed and the actual renewable developments, which
makes home and building owners’ investment difficult.
(2) Also, physical space restraint and limited total national potential
of the renewable system (i.e., wind power) are critical impedi-
ments in Korea. The representative renewable energy sources (e.
g., solar PV and wind power) require vast construction areas and
specific environmental conditions (i.e., high wind speed, suffi-
cient daylight hours) to install their facilities and assure genera-
tion efficiency. However, the market-level wind potential of
onshore and offshore [56] was estimated as the only 38.7 GW that
is 12.0% of solar energy potential. Also, the natural wind resource
is mostly available in specific regions (i.e., Gyeongbuk, Jeon-
nam). This fact compels solar energy-oriented renewable energy
distribution in renewable energy policy. The RE 3020 plan targets
30.8 GW of solar PV additions, which is double of 16.5 GW of
wind power additions by 2030 [9]. These goals may require the
massive and intensive development of solar PV and wind power
in the national territory and environment. However, limited
renewable potential and high-density urban environments make
it difficult for large-scale development and selecting locations in
urban areas for renewable projects. Therefore, to overcome
challenges, careful siting and installation strategies are necessary
with the policy support (e.g., renewable energy site excavation
and planning program) to maximize generation efficiency and
reduce operation and maintenance costs.
(3) Also, the current qualitative supply-oriented policy would distort
the results in renewable energy policies. For example, quantita-
tively, accumulated renewable homes reached a total of 408,789
homes in 2018 [23]. However, most solar PVs installed in resi-
dential homes represented an average of less than 1kW/home in
1993–2018, and average capacity had decreased even though the
supply of renewable homes had increased. Also, in reality,
frequent breakdowns of solar PV were reported [68]. Therefore,
to refrain from careless development in buildings, the govern-
ment needs to shift policy direction to manage both the quantity
and quality of renewable energy projects.
This study can be used to improve renewable energy policy, empir-
ically, and practically in Korea. From a review of the achievements and
barriers of renewables, we can contemplate weaknesses and opportu-
nities to support the government’s RE3020 goal. Also, the cases of Korea
can provide some insights for policymakers who want to share the actual
knowledge and experience of renewable energy policies to introduce
improved renewable energy deployment policies.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Appendix A. Summary of renewable energy policies in the
National Energy Basic Plans
 C. Kim
Reference Barriers/Appraisal of Previous Plans Policy Tasks Policy Actions

National Energy • Renewable market’s recession and limitations (i.e., stabilized
Basic Plan of oil prices, small-scale enterprise)
1997 [6] • Limitations of technology development (i.e., lack of
professional workforce, sporadic research, lack of political
support measures)
• Difficulties of technology transfer from developed countries
and the absence of the accumulated technologies related to
renewable energies
• Goal-oriented technology development and stimulating the markets for
supply (i.e., improved supporting policies, new renewable energy
demand creation)
• The improvement of technology development efficiency (i.e., improved
self-development capabilities, promoting research in the private sector,
enhanced professional human resources training, promoting collabora-
tive research between Industry, University, and Institute)
• International cooperation (i.e., research, technical information
gathering), and market access in other countries (i.e., Asia, Pacific
countries)
• Phased renewable technology development from 1988 through 2006
based on technical fields (i.e., preferential development of solar PV, solar
thermal, fuel cell, and IGCC)
• Providing financial loans for medium- and small-scale energy consumers
• More pilot projects funded by the governments which are targeting for
promising technology
• Pilot projects in national projects (i.e., governmental buildings, rural area
buildings)
• Medium- and small-scale micro-grid PV projects for islands and fuel cells
for large buildings in cities
• Mandatory regulation for solar thermal in golf courses, public bathhouses,
swimming pools
• Incentive program development (i.e., tax exemption)

National Energy • Low price competitiveness of renewable energies and high • Systematization and concentration of renewable technology • Select and concentration strategies in three priority renewables (i.e.,
Basic Plan of initial costs development solar, wind, fuel cell) of renewable energy technology development
2002 [21] • Underinvestment, lack of professional workforce, and • Project and policy to offer the base conditions for renewable industries • Introduction of renewable energy system certificate system
relatively low technology level • Support for renewable market expansion using improved incentives and • Establishment of a renewable system test and experiment center
• Lack of policy alternatives and systems to create renewable regulations • 100 Green Villages for renewable energy pilot projects by 2010
market • Strengthened Incentives: Feed-In-Tarif (FIT) for renewable energies, tariff
• 93.9% of renewable energy from waste and 98.8% of exemption from solar thermal only to all renewable products, tax
renewable energy used as the thermal type and less renewable exemption in new constructions, continuous R&D funding from energy
power used special accounts and other funding sources
• Renewable market creation: mandatory renewable facilities in
governmental and public buildings
• Renewable energy projects to correspond with the local environment and
climate conditions
• New program for 30 thousand solar homes by 2010
• Actual operation condition survey of renewable facilities to check
15

operation problems, status, and maintenance

• Introduction of Green Pricing program, which is a voluntary program by
customers who want to pay increased utility fee from the use of renewable
energies

National Energy • N/A • In the medium-term goal, financial expansion of renewable energies and • The financial expansion of renewable energies in the governmental
Basic Plan of strengthened support for biomass, ocean and waste energies to take fast energy special account and power funds and the introduction of the
2008 [8] and effective action per unit cost national committee of renewable energy relevant ministries
• In the long-term goal, the development of novel alternative and • More use of biodiesel and bioethanol and constructing a stable supply
renewable energies and the activation of private markets of renewable system of feedstock
energies • Combined heat & power plant using municipal and livestock wastes and

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870

• Strategic R&D and differentiated investment strategies biomass
• The development of new alternative/renewables such as tidal and wave
energies, differential thermal generation, biofuels (i.e., micro-algae,
macro-algae)
• Market-oriented new regulations (i.e., the introduction of Renewable
Portfolio Standard (RPS), the activation of the Renewable Energy
Certificate (REC) market
• Mandatory renewable installation for public buildings and incentives for
private structures in a short-term and shift to mandatory installation in
the long-term
• The preparation for future transition to a hydrogen economy
• Strategic R&D support for solar and wind energies and hydrogen fuel cells
as new growth industries

National Energy • 2.75% of renewable energy in total energy use, which is only • The creation of new renewable markets and convergence between the • The creation of new renewable markets: renewable target expansion into
Basic Plan of 85% achievement of the goal in 2008 national energy master relevant policies thermal and transport sectors using Renewable Heat Obligation (RHO)
2014 [22] plan • Reforming existing renewable policies to expand renewable diffusion and Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), recommendation and mandatory
policy of inhouse/onsite renewable power generating systems

(continued on next page)


(continued )
Reference Barriers/Appraisal of Previous Plans
• Insufficient substantial and realistic measures to accomplish
the renewable goals
• Immature renewable energy technical levels and lack of price
competitiveness
• Low localization ratio of core technologies and insufficient
business programs using developed techniques
• Adverse policy environment (i.e., relatively low electricity
price and weak financial support)
• Negative publicity of the increased electricity price, ineffective
follow-up management, local civil complaint and lack of
promotion
National Energy • Renewable energy reached 8.1% of total energy use, which
Basic Plan of exceeded 5.2% of the 2017 goal in 2014 national energy master
2019 [20] plan
• However, bio and waste energies occupied a large portion of
renewable energy and also, a substantial investment of
renewables led to worse financial structure in the government-
16
owned companies
Policy Tasks
• Strategic utilization of renewable energies and support to strengthen the
competitiveness of exports
• Strategic renewable energy R&D and introduction of market/result-
oriented R&D system
• The innovation of energy consumption structure
• Transfer to clean and safe energy mix
• Expansion of dispersed generations
• Enhancement of the energy industry’s global competitiveness
• Preparation for energy transfer
C. Kim
Policy Actions
• Integration of trading markets (i.e., electricity, thermal and transport
energy certificate markets) and liaison with other energy systems (i.e.,
emission trading system) in order to increase policies’ flexibility and
expand market size
• Reorganization of RPS: 1) integration of solar market and non-solar
market, 2) Bio, waste, and geothermal added to RPS, 3) dispersed power
(i.e., non-utility generation, energy donation) added to RPS
• Improving renewable projects, incentives, and loans: introduction of the
community-scale project, energy production-based incentive, rental
business by private companies, the introduction of financing projects for
renewable technology commercialization
• Strategic utilization of renewable energies (i.e., renewable microgrid for
islands, the use of energy storage systems (ESS) with renewables)
• Support for overseas renewable projects
• Global standard technology preemption
• Restructuring electric rate mechanism: Introduction of voluntary green
tariff system and Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for consumers
• Stringent renewable target: 30–35% of total electricity generation by
2040
• Introduction of renewable energy integrated control system and
expansion of backup facilities
• The goal of dispersed generations (i.e., renewables, community energy,
fuel cell) expanded to 30% until 2040
• Extensive diffusion of non-utility solar PV: more stringent mandatory
regulation for governmental buildings (target building size: over 1,000m2
→ over 500m2, up to 30% by 2020) development of new business models
for solar PV (i.e., unused space in public buildings and military camps, gas
station, factory roof)
• Introduction of the virtual power plant into electricity market using
groups of dispersed generations
• Introduction of integrated power plant management system
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870
• Business opportunities: vitalization of community participation and
benefit-sharing projects in non-utility scale
• Introduction of carbon certificates of renewable facilities and incentives
in Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) weight
• New criteria to regulate a minimum efficiency of solar PV in Korean
Standard (by the second half of 2019) and the development of measures in
Korean Standard to improve post-management of solar PV
• The new business of Building Applied PV (BAPV) that would replace 10%
of building exterior materials (expected market size: 1.5 billion dollars in
2022)
• Market-driven R&D: the development of solar PV module that achieves
23% of marginal efficiency and reduces over 10% of the unit cost by 2022;
the localization of key components of wind power (i.e., blade, generator)
and the development of large wind power systems (i.e., capacity ≥ 10
MW)
C. Kim Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110870

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