South Korea's power demand hits record high amid sweltering heat

On August 1st, local time, the Korea Electric Power Exchange said that the country’s monthly average maximum power in July increased by 1% from a year earlier to 82,700 megawatts, a record high.

However, the South Korean government is also actively handling and managing supply and demand to ensure a smooth response to emergencies. The power department said that reserve power higher than 5.5 gigawatts is a normal level, but analysis believes that in order to deal with emergencies such as generator failures and abnormally high temperatures, the reserve power and reserve rate must exceed at least 10 gigawatts and 10%.

The analysis pointed out that the main reason for this phenomenon is that electricity demand has come out of the impact of the epidemic and has shown a recovery momentum, coupled with the early arrival of hot summer weather.

According to data released by the Korea Meteorological Agency, the rainy season in South Korea this year is shorter than in previous years. The rainy season in the central, southern and Jeju regions is only 16 days, which is the average from 1991 to 2020 (31 days in the central, 31 days in the southern and Jeju regions) 32 days).

As the high temperature continued, the road asphalt in South Korea reached 60°C during the day, almost melting. Not only during the day, but also in major cities and coastal areas such as Seoul, South Korea, "tropical nights" (referring to the minimum temperature at night exceeding 25°C).

It is predicted that the power supply reserve rate will further decline from July to August when power demand peaks, and South Korea may issue another power supply and demand alert after nine years since 2013. The Ministry of Industry of Korea said that in order to ensure stable supply, 9.2 gigawatts of additional reserve resources have been secured, but there is also an urgent need for households and units to cooperate to save electricity.

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