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▲ Solar panel (photo = Pixar Bay) |
[에너지경제신문 이원희 기자] The initial government policy to limit participation in a small solar power fixed price contract (FIT) to only one power plant per solar power generation business operator is retreating due to industry opposition. The government recently withdrew its original policy and established a new standard for participation in solar FIT, and plans to announce the recruitment of participants this week as early as this week.
A government official said on the 4th, “The initial policy was revised so that only one power generation company per one small solar power generation company below a certain standard can participate in the FIT, and by the end of last month, an announcement was made to recruit FIT participants, but the initial policy was renewed due to the industry’s opposition. It is under review,” he said. “We are setting a goal so that an announcement can be released this week.”
As a new participation standard under review by the government, the number of power plants allowed to participate in photovoltaic FIT should be increased to 2-3 per power generation business operator, or limited to one power plant per operator as originally planned, but exceptions to several power plants for cooperatives. It was known as. It is reported that this was due to the industry’s fierce opposition that the government is trying to over-reduce the FIT system centered on small businesses.
The government’s policy was when the news of the government’s’restriction of participation in one power plant per power plant operator’ was announced by the Energy Economy Newspaper’s February 22 report,’Small type solar energy fixed price contract eventually allowed only one power plant per operator’. I strongly rebelled against it.
In the FIT, solar power facility capacity is less than 30kW for the general public, and less than 100kW for farmers and fishermen and cooperatives. When the distance between power plants exceeds 250M, there is no limit on the capacity to participate, so one operator owns several FITs, resulting in a significant increase in the number of FIT participants. FIT is more than 20% more expensive than other solar power sales markets, which is advantageous for power generation companies. However, as the number of FIT participants increases, the government burden may increase.
As a result, the government considered a plan to limit the number of FITs allowed to one per person. However, the industry rebelled, seeing that if FIT, which is a small-scale photovoltaic promotion policy, was restricted, the industry would shrink significantly.
It is also known as the background of the government’s reconsideration that Yang Lee Won-young, a member of the Democratic Party, recently proposed to the government to allow the participation of many power plants to participate in FIT, with an exception for cooperatives.
An official in the Yang-yi office said, “It is too much that Yang-yi applies the same FIT restrictions to cooperatives as other power generation companies.” This is because co-operatives are considered to be able to lead citizens’ participation in solar power supply through co-operatives because a large number of citizens can participate.
However, if the standard is applied differently only to cooperatives, it is expected that general business owners will be opposed due to equity issues.
An industry official said, “If you apply FIT standards to cooperatives separately, it can be seen as giving preferential treatment to cooperatives.”
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If the government’s review plan is finalized, it will affect the renewable energy supply mandatory (RPS) bid market and the renewable energy procurement costs of six public power generation companies under KEPCO.
First of all, power generation companies’ participation in RPS fixed price contracts and spot markets may be poor. As the total amount of renewable energy supply of public power generation companies is fixed, if the number of FIT participation increases, the RPS bid amount will inevitably decrease. In addition, since the FIT contract price is higher than the RPS bid contract price, if the FIT contract volume increases, the cost of renewable energy procurement is inevitable for public power generation companies. The FIT contract unit price is the higher of the average successful bid price of RPS bidding in the first half of the previous year and the second half of the previous year.
Furthermore, the cost of procuring renewable energy by public power generation companies is to be compensated by income from electricity bills, and this increase in procurement costs will lead to an increased burden on the people, who are electricity consumers.
Due to the recent reorganization of electricity bills, the cost of fulfilling the duty of new and renewable energy is being charged as a climate environment cost. If the cost rises, it will have an impact on the increase in electricity bills.
In the case of rural solar power, the government pushed ahead with a plan to limit the FIT participation standard, which was allowed unlimitedly for operators under 100MW, to’one power plant per power plant.’
This is due to the fact that although the FIT system targets small businesses and it is difficult to attract’economy of scale’ for each business operator, the proportion of businesses in the total renewable energy procurement market of public power generation companies is excessively increased as business operators are scattered through the policy of expanding new and renewable energy. will be. In addition, the fact that one power plant operator divided the power generation capacity to meet the FIT participation criteria and built several power plants, and then participated in FIT repeatedly, resulting in a side effect of monopolizing benefits. This is the background of the government’s’restriction of participation in one power plant per power plant operator’. Was passed on.
FIT applies through the Korea Energy Agency and makes contracts with six public power generation companies. Power generation enterprises are assigned to procure a certain renewable energy supply certificate (REC) in accordance with the 9% RPS mandatory supply ratio this year. FIT is also a means for public power generation companies to purchase and procur RECs along with RPS bidding and participation in the spot market to meet the RPS duty ratio. The total participation capacity of FIT, which started in July 2018, was 1903MW, which was 55.3% of the 3439MW of RPS fixed price contract tenders.