South Korea to expand renewable monitoring mandate to 20 kW

South Korea’s Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment (MCEE) will require solar, wind, and fuel-cell installations as small as 20 kW to carry real-time monitoring and remote-control capability from 2027. It said the change also eases the switch to commercial mobile networks.

The MCEE said it revised its transmission and distribution regulations on Sept. 4, expanding the equipment mandate to cover business-use and electricity-trading solar, wind and fuel-cell installations of 20 kW or more. The equipment gives operators real-time visibility into output and operating status and allows remote adjustment of generation during voltage spikes or grid faults.

The ministry said generation operators will now be permitted to use commercial 4G LTE mobile networks rather than being required to connect through Korea Electric Power Corp.’s (Kepco) proprietary e-WSN utility communications network. Kepco is South Korea’s national electric utility.

The MCEE estimated the switch will reduce equipment costs from about KRW 4.6 million ($3,420) to about KRW 2 million per installation, a 57% reduction, and cut commissioning time from about 84 days to about 10 days, an 88% reduction.

Under current rules, generation operators bear the full cost of building monitoring and control systems, with costs rising in mountainous or remote areas that require wired cable, and Kepco’s e-WSN network taking an average of three months to connect.

The MCEE said the mandate builds on a rollout that began in October 2020, when it first required monitoring and control equipment for new solar, wind and fuel-cell installations of 100 kW or more on Jeju Island, before gradually widening the scope.

An official from the MCEE’s power grid policy bureau said in a statement that the revision lays the groundwork for grid stability as renewable capacity expands, and that the ministry will continue pursuing grid-stability measures to reach its 2030 target.

According to South Korea’s First Renewable Energy Basic Plan, the country aims to raise renewable capacity from about 37 GW in 2025 to 100 GW by 2030, 163 GW by 2035, and 220 GW by 2040.

The monitoring mandate follows other recent MCEE moves to modernize South Korea’s grid ahead of that expansion. The ministry earmarked KRW 321 billion for distributed-grid upgrades in 2026, including 85 new energy storage systems by 2030. And in July, it secured KRW 558.6 billion over five years for its first distribution-line ESS program, which Energy Minister Kim Sung-hwan said would help resolve distribution-network bottlenecks as renewables become a primary power source.