Smart Grid Projections for Asia

One of the obvious ways in which ICT can contribute to green growth is through the installation of a smart grid.   A new estimate suggests that smart grid investment in Asia is expected to reach $171.3 billion by 2017, up from $11.9 billion this year.  As NewNet notes, Korea is seeking to leverage its technology leadership in the IT and communications space to form an advanced smart grid infrastructure within the country, as well as an opportunity to export smart grid technologies around the world..

Korea Poised to be a Leader in Smart Grid Technology

The industry press is noting a new report by Pike Research on Korea's smart grid plans.  These were the subject of earlier posts last year.  The new report suggests that Korea's efforts will result in investments totalling $15.8 billion within South Korea itself between 2009 and 2016.  Noting that Korean companies have been at the forefront of innovation in ICT, an industry expert suggests they are now posed to take a significant leadership role in the smart grid market, both within Korea and on a global level.  This will be one of the interesting areas of industry convergence to watch, since a smart grid essentially involves convergence of ICT with the electric power industry and also because smart grids are considered a green technology.

Samsung Launches Solar Cell Testing Facility

Today the Chosun Ilbo published a very interesting article on Samsung launching a solar cell R&D and testing facility.  Its eventual goal is the mass production of solar cells.   The sentence from the article that caught my attention was the following. "The company said it has raised its technological independence in solar cells to 85 percent by utilizing its expertise in LCDs and semiconductors." This is only one example of the diverse effects of having a strong ICT sector like that here in Korea.

Green PC Bangs (Internet Cafes) Coming!

It had to happen. As reported in the local media, including the Korea Times, the PC Bang phenomenon has converged with green IT and South Korea's internet cafes will be going green. It was an idea whose time had come. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy is looking to spend about $33 million on power-efficient internet data centers. Within this, it plans for "green" PC rooms. By eliminating the individual PCs from a PC Bang and connecting all of the LCD displays and keyboards to a single server, substantial power savings can be realized. For example, a PC Bang with 50 computers that presently utilizes 54.7 megawatts of electricity per year could reduce its annual power bill by $4,300. The complementary plan for low-power internet data centers focuses on lowering the power requirements of these centers, which are the backbone of "cloud computing."

Korea to Save Power by Installing Smart Grid by 2030

An article in the Korea Times provides some interesting detail on South Korea's plans to install a smart grid by the year 2030.  The high tech, nationwide electricity grid is expected to create a market worth about $54.5 billion, create 500,000 new jobs annually, and to reduce the country's power consumption by 3 percent.  According to a ministry official, the energy saved will be the equivalent to having seven extra 1,000 megawatt nuclear power generators.  The internet protocol (IP) based electricity network will give consumers more choice, allowing them to pay different rates for electricity used on computers an heating, or different rates for power generated from green technology such as wind or solar power generators.  KEPCO is planning the country's first smart grid test bed on the island of Jeju.

Korea's "Green IT" Initiative

I've been invited to a forum presentation on "Green IT" this Friday morning, so thought I would do a little research by way of preparation. A recent article in the Korea IT Times proved most helpful. Green growth has been very much in the news in Korea for a long time, but especially since the inauguration of the Lee Myung Bak government.  On May 13 the Green Growth Commission completed an action plan for the Green New Deal to implement the low carbon, green growth policy.  The government plans to invest a total of 4.2 trillion won (US $3.31 billion) from this year until 2013.  Within this broad initiative, the government's Green IT Plan has two major emphases.  One is to develop green IT products and the other is to use IT to lower energy use and pollution.

The development of green IT products will initially focus on three leading products:  PCs, displays and servers.  With South Korea's world-leading levels of broadband internet use, its PC Bangs, massive multiplayer online games and the growing popularity of cloud computing,  it should hardly come as any surprise that internet data centers used by Korean consumers have a large carbon footprint.  Of course, this also means that this infrastructure offers significant opportunities for reduction of carbon consumption through greener IT products.

The second major emphasis, the use of IT to transform the nation into a lower carbon-usage society offers similar opportunities to help make Korea greener.   Telecommuting can reduce pollution as can the introduction of more intelligence into both public and private transportation systems.  In the forthcoming ubiquitous network society, the combination of a smart electric power grid with home networks offers great opportunities to reduce carbon consumption.  Smart systems to monitor the environment are also in the works.  Finally, let's not forget that Korea's success with Green IT is certain to create success in new export sectors since the problems of energy, global warming and many of the other problems facing the world are now planetary in scope.

Green IT --South Koreas Photovoltaic (PV) Industry

SEMICON Korea earlier this year included a half-day session on the PV industry that provided some interesting details on this nation's ambitious plans. An industry web site noted that "With leaders in flat panel display technology such as Samsung and LG Philips, strong government support and research infrastructure, and with an established supply chain that is extensible to PV manufacturing, many observers believe Korea may emerge to challenge for worldwide leadership in solar energy."

The specific goals include increases in the efficiency of cells, a decrease in their cost, and capturing 10 percent of world market share by 2012. For details see the full article.