South Korea nuclear rises as coal falls

• 3 days ago (2025-08-18)
• David Flin

Asia 958 Coal 329 Nuclear 696

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South Korea’s power output is rising sharply ahead of official targets due to fewer maintenance outages, a new power plant coming online, pushing down the usage of coal-fired power plants.

Data from KEPCO showed that generation from nuclear power plants grew 8.7 per cent year-on-year in H1 of 2025, three times the planned annual growth of 2.9 per cent. Over the same period, coal-fired output fell by 16 per cent.

KEPCO data showed that nuclear’s share of power generation rose to 31.7 per cent in 2024 from 25.9 per cent in 2019, while coal declined from 40.4 per cent to 28.1 per cent.

A spokesperson for KEPCO attributed the nuclear growth to a 29 per cent decline in maintenance outage times and a 6 per cent increase in installed nuclear capacity in H1 of 2025. The 1.4 GW Shin Hanul #2 plant southeast of Seoul came online in April 2024.

A spokesperson for Korea Power Exchange (KPX) said: “If nuclear and renewable facilities continue to be additionally expanded in the future, generation from gas and coal is likely to continue to decrease.”