The Ownership Structure of South Korea's Energy Transition: A Transition for Whom?

Date of Writing: 2026-08-11 (Revised: 2026-08-11) Category: Public Analysis Report Purpose: Foundational material for building a working-class reader bloc within the climate justice movement

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Introduction: Breaking the Classless Assumption That "Renewable Energy = Good"

The mainstream discourse of South Korea's climate movement presupposes the expansion of renewable energy as intrinsically good. It believes—or at least claims—that the technological transition from coal and gas generation to solar and wind is itself the realization of climate justice.

This report verifies that assumption with data. The question is simple: Who owns South Korea's renewable energy facilities? To whom do the benefits of the transition accrue, and to whom do the costs fall? Simply answering this question is enough to collapse the classless narrative of the mainstream environmental movement.

To state the conclusion upfront: South Korea's energy transition is functioning as a new field of accumulation for the chaebol and finance capital, with workers and ordinary people bearing most of the costs. This report will empirically demonstrate this structure along five axes.

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1. Ownership Distribution of Renewable Energy Facilities: Overwhelming Domination by Private Capital

1.1. Ownership Structure of Total Power Generation Facilities

As of 2024, South Korea's total power generation capacity stood at 153.1 GW. Of this, new and renewable energy facilities accounted for 34.7 GW (22.7%), emerging as the third-largest power source after gas (46.3 GW) and coal (40.2 GW). Solar photovoltaic (PV) dominated with 27.1 GW (78.1%), followed by wind at 2.2 GW, hydro at 1.8 GW, and biomass at 1.8 GW[1].

What is notable is the growth rate of new and renewable energy. In 2024 alone, new and renewable capacity increased by 10.5%—nearly double the overall generation capacity growth rate of 6.0%. Solar PV in particular grew 13.1%, with 3.1 GW newly installed. In 2024, the share of new and renewable energy in electricity generation surpassed 10% for the first time (10.6%).

But who owns this 34.7 GW? Published government statistics contain no classification by ownership type of generation business operators. This gap is itself the problem. However, it can be reconstructed through existing research and individual data.

As of 2024, approximately 90% of South Korea's renewable energy power plants are privately owned[2]. This figure means that facilities held by KEPCO, its generation subsidiaries, Korea District Heating Corporation, and others amount to barely 10% of total renewable energy facilities.

1.2. Solar PV: An Arena of Contest between Individual Operators and Finance Capital

Even within the 27.1 GW of solar PV, class differentiation in ownership is pronounced.

• Small-scale individual operators (under 1 MW) constitute the majority by number of businesses, but their share by generation volume is progressively shrinking. As the SMP (System Marginal Price) and REC prices have fallen, profitability has deteriorated and cases of failure to repay debt are increasing. According to a Chosun Ilbo report (Feb 25, 2026), a 1 MW solar plant with a KRW 1.5 billion loan generates an annual deficit of KRW 4 million starting from the sixth year[3].
• Large-scale operators (SK E&S, GS EPS, POSCO International, Hanwha Solutions, etc.) are increasing the number of multi-hundred-MW-scale complexes. They vertically integrate construction, finance, and operation, squeezing small-scale operators out of the market.
• Finance capital is emerging as the de facto owner of solar power plants. Concentration of assets is proceeding through policy fund lending via the new and renewable energy financial support program, dominant positions in the spot REC market, and M&A of power plants.

1.3. Offshore Wind: A New Market Captured by the Chaebol

Offshore wind is a capital-intensive market requiring KRW 4–5 trillion in initial investment per GW. From the outset, the chaebol have dominated the market.

• SK Innovation E&S: Commenced commercial operation of the South Jeolla Offshore Wind Phase 1 (96 MW) in May 2025. Korea's first privately led large-scale offshore wind complex. Holds a total pipeline of 5 GW[4].
• Hanwha Solutions: Entered offshore wind alongside its North American and European solar value chain.
• Samsung C&T: Monetizing through the sale of power generation business rights.
• LS Cable & System: Monopolizing the offshore wind transmission market with HVDC submarine cables.

The 11th Basic Plan for Long-Term Electricity Supply and Demand (Feb 2025) set an offshore wind target of 18.3 GW by 2030—more than eight times the 2024 capacity of 2.2 GW. This new market, worth tens of trillions of won, is being carved up among a handful of chaebol affiliates at the very moment of its birth.

1.4. Energy Cooperatives: The Reality of the Democratic Alternative—and the Limits of the Data

What should be noted as an alternative to the mainstream chaebol-centered model is the energy cooperative movement. According to the Korean Citizen Solar Energy Cooperatives Federation, as of the end of 2025, 78 member cooperatives with approximately 45,000 members participate, operating about 33.46 MW of capacity across a total of 333 power plants[5]. The Sunlight Income Village policy (announced by the government in 2026) grants a REC weight of 1.2 for resident-participatory renewable energy.

However, this movement amounts to only about 0.1% of total renewable energy capacity. More importantly, even this figure does not accurately reflect the actual character of the cooperatives. Among the 78 cooperatives, cases of simply registering individual household solar installations in cooperative form are mixed together with cases where members genuinely co-invest and co-operate. Current government statistics do not distinguish between the two. Within an institutional environment designed to favor large capital in every respect—construction, finance, and electricity trading (ReSCO registration criteria, REC auction market, substation saturation problems)—the very survival of a genuinely cooperative energy transition is a struggle. The opacity of this data itself attests to the structural marginalization facing the cooperative movement.

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2. The RPS System and Subsidies: Who Takes the Public Funds?

2.1. How the RPS System Works

The Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) system obligates operators holding generation facilities of 500 MW or more to supply a certain percentage of their total generation from new and renewable energy. Obligated suppliers may either generate renewable energy themselves or purchase RECs (Renewable Energy Certificates) to fulfill their obligations.

As of 2026, there are 29 RPS obligated suppliers with a total obligated supply volume of 69,330,845 MWh (94,289,948 RECs by REC standard). This represents an increase of 6.3% by MWh and 7.9% by REC compared to 2025. The obligation ratio was raised from 14.0% in 2025 to 15.0% in 2026[6].

2.2. Composition of Obligated Suppliers and Allocation of Obligation Volumes

The allocation structure of RPS obligation volumes itself reflects the imbalance between public and private entities.

The six state-owned generation companies were allocated approximately 72.5% of total obligated supply[7]:

• Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power: 17,966,470 RECs (19.1% of the total)
• Korea Midland Power: 10,594,423 RECs
• Korea South-East Power: 10,375,674 RECs
• Korea Southern Power: 10,206,049 RECs
• Korea Western Power: 9,862,437 RECs
• Korea East-West Power: 9,362,896 RECs

Other public institutions (2 entities):

• Korea District Heating Corporation: 2,893,760 RECs
• Korea Water Resources Corporation: 144,783 RECs

Private generation companies (21 entities) hold the remaining approximately 25%:

• Paju Energy Service: 2,088,664 RECs
• POSCO International: 2,014,446 RECs
• Goseong Green Power: 1,943,129 RECs
• GS EPS: 1,386,196 RECs
• Dongducheon Dream Power: 1,359,604 RECs
• GS Power: 1,300,178 RECs, among others

Here a core structural contradiction emerges. The state-owned generation companies bear the bulk of RPS obligations, and the cost is passed on to electricity bills under the name of the climate environment charge. The climate environment charge rose from KRW 5.3 per kWh in 2021 to KRW 9.0 in 2025—an increase of approximately 70%.

KEPCO's combined RPS + ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) costs are projected to surge: KRW 3.8 trillion in 2023 → KRW 4.7 trillion in 2024 → KRW 5.0 trillion in 2025 → KRW 6.0 trillion in 2026 → KRW 6.6 trillion in 2027[8]. These costs are reflected directly in electricity bills and passed on in their entirety to final consumers.

2.3. The Dual Character of the RPS System

Beneath the surface of "mandatory renewable energy purchase," the RPS performs two class functions:

1. Public subsidy to private renewable energy generators: RECs are additional revenue earned by renewable energy generation operators. The entities purchasing these RECs are the state-owned generation companies and KEPCO, and the purchase cost is distributed to the entire population through electricity bills. In other words, the structure guarantees the profits of private renewable energy generators with public money from all citizens.
2. A means for the chaebol to avoid regulatory costs: SK E&S, GS EPS, and others are RPS obligated suppliers while simultaneously being the largest beneficiaries that produce and sell RECs. A structure is possible in which they impose obligations on themselves and supply RECs to themselves.

2.4. From FIT to RPS, and Then to Competitive Bidding: The Class Consequences of Institutional Change

South Korea abolished the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) system in 2012 and converted to RPS. FIT was a system that purchased electricity from renewable energy generators at a fixed price, guaranteeing stable revenue even for small-scale operators. RPS, by contrast, exposes operators to price competition and REC market volatility—a structure favorable to large-scale operators with capital.

In 2025, the government is pursuing a plan to abolish RPS and transition to a "renewable energy contract market"[9]. This too is a long-term contract framework centered on large operators and is likely to deepen the exclusion of small-scale operators and cooperatives.

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3. KEPCO's Transmission and Distribution Grid Monopoly and Privatization Pressure: A 25-Year Struggle

3.1. Historical Trajectory

Korea's electricity industry began as a monopoly in which KEPCO vertically integrated generation, transmission, distribution, and retail sales. The history of privatization pressure dates back to the 1997 foreign exchange crisis.

1998–2001 Structural Reform Planning: As part of the IMF bailout conditions, the government pursued the privatization of KEPCO and the unbundling of the electricity industry. The "Basic Plan for the Restructuring of the Electric Power Industry" (1999) proposed a three-stage unbundling: Stage 1 generation competition (unbundling into six generation subsidiaries), Stage 2 wholesale competition (distribution unbundling and privatization), and Stage 3 retail competition (transition to a fully competitive system). This plan was legislated in December 2000 through the amendment of the Electricity Business Act and the enactment of the Act on the Promotion of Restructuring of the Electric Power Industry[10].

Suspension in 2004: Entry into Stage 2 (distribution unbundling) was indefinitely postponed due to fierce opposition from labor and civil society, as well as the highlighting of the dangers of electric power industry privatization brought on by the 2003 Northeast blackout. Only the Stage 1 generation unbundling was completed, and this state persists to the present.

Reignition in the 2020s: As KEPCO's cumulative deficit reached KRW 48 trillion after 2022, the discourse that "KEPCO's monopoly is the cause of electricity price distortion and deficits" spread. Domestic and international institutions including the IMF, OECD, and KDI have repeatedly recommended introducing competition into the electricity market and unbundling distribution. The Lee Jae-myung administration's "Energy Highway" plan announced in November 2025 promised KRW 56 trillion in investment for transmission grid expansion, but with KEPCO's financial crisis (debt ratio 619%, borrowing dependency 63%), pressure to attract private capital is intensifying in a situation where self-funded investment capacity does not exist[11].

3.2. Current Structural Contradiction

KEPCO monopolizes the transmission and distribution grid, but that monopoly has degenerated from public control into subordination to capital markets through financial crisis.

• KEPCO bond outstanding balance: KRW 76 trillion as of Q2 2025
• KEPCO bond issuance limit: Expanded to KRW 90 trillion through the revised Korea Electric Power Corporation Act at the end of 2022, but scheduled to sharply decline to KRW 36 trillion in 2028
• Pressure to raise capital for repaying KEPCO bonds maturing after 2028 → possibility of covert privatization through sale of distribution grid stakes and establishment of special purpose companies (SPCs)

3.3. The Class Character of the "Energy Highway"

The "Energy Highway" plan announced in 2025 is framed as transmission grid expansion for renewable energy growth, but its substance is a reorganization of class interests.

Who benefits. First, large corporations in the capital region—semiconductors and data centers (Samsung Electronics, SK hynix) are the greatest beneficiaries. The Yongin semiconductor cluster alone requires 16 GW of power, equivalent to 40% of capital region electricity consumption. The real purpose of the Energy Highway is to stably supply renewable energy from the Honam and east coast regions to these large corporations. Second, generation operators resolve local curtailment (over 1,000 cases nationwide in Q1 2024) and secure market access to the capital region. Third, landowners along the transmission route receive additional payments of up to 75% of land compensation[12]. This compensation triggers class differentiation within villages.

Who bears the costs. First, landless residents and tenants along the transmission route must endure health damage from transmission tower construction, land price declines, and destruction of their living environment, while being excluded from the compensation framework. Second, ecosystems are destroyed. In the case of Hongcheon Gari Mountain, there is a risk that transmission towers will be built in the habitat of endangered species such as the long-tailed goral and yellow-throated marten. Third, transmission grid construction workers are exposed to poor construction site conditions, yet workers' interests in this project are entirely excluded from policy discussions. Fourth, residents of areas where power plants are located are trapped in an "energy colony" structure in which generation profits flow out to the capital region.

In this arrangement of interests, the Energy Highway is not a simple infrastructure investment but a class reorganization project that strengthens the interest coalition of capital-region industrial capital–generation operators–landowners and transfers costs to local residents, ecosystems, and construction workers. The Green Party's characterization of it as "an unjust policy that colonializes Yeongnam, Honam, and the east coast as energy colonies" is accurate[13]. Yet even this critique remains within an "interregional inequality" frame and does not analyze which class interests this policy reorganizes and how. The stakeholder map above fills precisely that gap.

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4. Class Distribution of Energy Transition Costs: Who Pays More?

4.1. The Regressivity of Electricity Rates and the Climate Environment Charge

As of Q1 2025, the average monthly electricity bill burden for households in the bottom income quintile was KRW 47,320. This is a 78.3% increase compared to 2019 (KRW 26,531)[14]. Considering that the residential electricity rate increase over the same period was approximately 40%, the increase in the perceived burden on low-income households is nearly double the official rate increase. This is because low-income households spend a higher proportion of their income on energy (energy poverty).

Meanwhile, over the same period, industrial electricity rates were raised seven consecutive times, but residential electricity rates were not raised a single time. As a result, in some rate brackets, household electricity rates became cheaper than industrial rates—a "rate inversion" phenomenon[15]. On the surface this appears to protect ordinary people, but in reality it deepens KEPCO's deficit and is a political choice that accumulates the justification for large-scale rate increases in the future.

The climate environment charge (funded by RPS + ETS costs) is likewise levied as a flat amount per kWh, so the same amount is imposed regardless of income level. The lower one's income, the higher the burden relative to income—a fully regressive tax.

4.2. KEPCO's Financial Crisis: Who Is Bailed Out?

After recording cumulative operating losses of KRW 48 trillion from 2021 to 2023, KEPCO posted an operating profit of KRW 3.2 trillion in 2024 and KRW 13.5 trillion in 2025 (the largest ever)[16]. The key factors in this turnaround to surplus:

1. Industrial electricity rate increases (seven consecutive times, 2022–2024)
2. Stabilization of international fuel prices (decline in LNG and coal prices)
3. Residential electricity rates were not raised → deficit resolution was made dependent on the industrial sector

In other words, KEPCO's surplus was achieved through increasing the energy cost burden on large corporations, and this cost is in turn passed on to final consumers through product price increases. Workers and ordinary people bear a double burden—through electricity bills and through inflation.

4.3. Employment Changes by Class

The employment effect of the energy transition is entirely different from the abstractly touted "green job creation." Coal power plant closures are a direct blow to non-regular contract workers. In the regular/non-regular dual structure of Korea's state-owned generation companies, what is cut when coal plants close is mainly contract non-regular workers.

Meanwhile, a substantial portion of new employment in the renewable energy sector consists of:

• High-income planning, finance, and engineering personnel at large corporation headquarters (Seoul/capital region)
• Low-wage workers at production plants in China and Vietnam
• Day laborers and construction workers at domestic construction sites

The employment effect of the energy transition is not "new job creation" but "class-based reallocation of employment," and it operates most harshly on workers at the bottom.

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5. Affiliate Relationships and Business Scale of Major Corporations

5.1. Map of Chaebol-Affiliated Energy Corporations

Korea's renewable energy industry has a structure in which affiliates of a small number of chaebol groups vertically integrate generation, manufacturing, finance, and construction.

5.2. The SK Case: The Reality of the Largest Private Renewable Energy Operator

As of May 2025, SK Innovation E&S is the largest private operator, holding a renewable energy pipeline of 5 GW both domestically and internationally. It operates and develops 3.5 GW of solar (Dangjin and Taean in South Chungcheong, Sinan in South Jeolla, etc.), and the South Jeolla Offshore Wind Phase 1 (96 MW, 10 turbines) is Korea's first privately led large-scale offshore wind complex, producing electricity for approximately 90,000 households per year[17].

SK Innovation E&S is simultaneously an RPS obligated supplier, allocated an obligation of 1,117,603 RECs for 2026. In other words, it is a vertically integrated structure in which the company bears obligations to itself while producing and supplying RECs to itself. In this process, government subsidies (the climate environment charge) flow into the SK group.

5.3. The LS Case: The Proprietor of Grid Monopoly

The LS Group holds a more fundamental position than renewable energy generation itself—the power grid infrastructure. LS Cable & System expanded its HVDC submarine cable production capacity more than fourfold in July 2025, securing Asia's largest production base. The global HVDC market is projected to grow from USD 12.2 billion in 2024 to USD 26.4 billion in 2034, an annual average growth rate of 8.1%[18].

LS Cable & System is one of only five companies worldwide capable of turnkey submarine cable provision from manufacturing through installation. LS Electric exclusively supplies renewable energy grid connections in switchgear, transformers, and smart grid fields. LS MnM refines electrolytic copper, the raw material for cables, and is expanding into battery materials (nickel sulfate and cobalt sulfate). A structure is being formed in which LS dominates everything from the grid's raw material (copper) to cables and transmission equipment.

5.4. The Samsung C&T Case: Speculation in Generation Business Rights

Rather than directly operating renewable energy plants, Samsung C&T's Trading Division pursues a "speculative" model of developing and then selling generation business rights. The sequence runs: securing solar site usage rights → grid connection study → obtaining permits → selling the business rights—realizing profit without any power plant construction or operation whatsoever.

Profit from business rights sales in 2024 was USD 77 million (approximately KRW 113.2 billion), a 3.7-fold increase from USD 21 million in 2021[19]. This is a case in which the public task of the renewable energy transition is diverted into a source of speculative profit in the manner of real estate development.

5.5. RE100: The Chaebol's Eco-Friendly Declaration, Workers' and Suppliers' Costs

Major Korean chaebol's adherence to RE100 is accelerating. Samsung Electronics (joined September 2022), SK hynix, Hyundai Motor, LG Energy Solution, and others have declared that they will convert 100% of their electricity use to renewable energy by 2050. However, the domestic RE100 implementation rate as of 2025 is approximately 15%—one-third of the global average (42%)[20]. This gap produces two structures of violent cost shifting.

First, the pass-through of RE100 implementation costs to consumers. Korea's levelized cost of solar energy is USD 78–147/MWh—two to three times that of China (USD 31–54/MWh) and more than three times that of India (USD 26–47/MWh)[21]. The green premium, a primary means Korean companies choose for RE100 implementation, imposes an additional cost of approximately KRW 10 per kWh (2026 first-round average of KRW 10.017/kWh)[22]. In the case of PPAs (Power Purchase Agreements), system costs—transmission and distribution facility charges, ancillary settlement amounts, and transaction fees—amount to 18–27% of the generation cost. These additional costs are ultimately passed on to final consumers through product price increases.

Second, the pass-through of costs to suppliers through the supply chain. Large corporations such as Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor face RE100 implementation pressure from global buyers (Apple, BMW, etc.) while simultaneously demanding RE100 implementation from their own suppliers. The costs of RE100 implementation (green premiums, REC purchase costs, PPA premiums) are not borne directly by the large corporations but are passed on to suppliers in the form of pressure to lower supply prices. Large corporations monopolize the brand value of "ESG management" while small and medium suppliers bear unverified costs. The case of Samsung Electronics' entry into the REC market in 2022, which caused a sharp rise in REC purchase costs for existing RE100-joined companies, well illustrates this competition in cost shifting: the entry of a giant corporation into the market actually raises overall renewable energy procurement costs—a phenomenon of "large-corporation premium predation"[23].

In the end, RE100 is superficially packaged as "corporate voluntary climate action," but its substance is a class-based cost-shifting mechanism in which large corporations monopolize the eco-friendly image and distribute implementation costs to suppliers, workers, and consumers.

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Conclusion: The Chaebol's Energy Transition or the Workers' Energy Transition?

Synthesis of the Analysis

The five axes of this report converge on a single conclusion: South Korea's energy transition is structured as a new accumulation regime led by the chaebol.

1. Ownership: 90% of renewable energy facilities are privately owned, and the new offshore wind market is being carved up at its embryonic stage among a handful of chaebol—SK, Hanwha, Samsung, and LS. Energy cooperatives account for a mere 0.1% of the total, and even that figure statistically fails to distinguish genuine co-operative operation from mere registration cases.
2. Subsidies: RPS + ETS costs (KRW 5–6 trillion annually) are passed on to the public through electricity bills, functioning as public subsidies that guarantee the profits of private renewable energy generators.
3. Transmission and distribution grid: KEPCO's financial crisis (debt of KRW 206 trillion, debt ratio of 619%) is being exploited as the very basis for pressure to unbundle distribution and attract private capital. The Energy Highway is a class reorganization project that strengthens the interest coalition of capital-region industrial capital, generation operators, and landowners.
4. Cost distribution: While the electricity bill burden on low-income households increased 78% over five years, large corporations expand accumulation through REC sales revenue and profits from selling generation business rights.
5. Corporate structure: SK, Hanwha, Samsung, and LS are vertically integrating generation, manufacturing, construction, and finance, capturing the entire value chain of the energy transition.
6. RE100: The costs of the chaebol's eco-friendly declarations are shifted to suppliers through lower supply prices and to consumers through price increases, while large corporations monopolize only the ESG brand value.

Class Implications

The class reality concealed by the neutral language of "energy transition" is clear. Renewable energy is not a simple technological substitution—it is a new field of accumulation for capital. The shared resources of sun and wind are converted into commodities through the private ownership of power plants and grids, and in this process workers and ordinary people exist only as payers of electricity bills.

The "just transition" spoken of by the mainstream environmental movement does not question this structure. The equation "renewable energy expansion = good" does not ask who owns that renewable energy or in whose interest it is operated. The result is precisely what Germany's energy transition (Energiewende) has demonstrated over more than a decade: a rising share of renewable energy accompanied by soaring electricity bills and deepening energy poverty.

The Necessity of Building a Workers' Bloc within the Climate Justice Movement

The practical task this analysis raises is clear. In annual climate actions such as the 919 Climate Justice March in 2025, the working class must organize its own slogans and bloc.

Specific directions:

1. Putting ownership on the agenda: Demand not "renewable energy expansion" but "democratic workers' control over generation, transmission, and distribution." Pressure for disclosure of the ownership distribution of renewable energy facilities and the structure of subsidy beneficiaries.
2. Connecting workers' direct interests: Link the regressivity of electricity rates, energy poverty, and the dismissal of non-regular contract workers in coal generation to the climate agenda. Build the frame of "climate crisis response = workers' right to survival."
3. Exposing the chaebol energy transition: Track and disclose the profit structures of renewable energy businesses of SK, Hanwha, Samsung C&T, LS, and others. Move beyond "greenwashing" discourse and arm ourselves with empirical data on ownership and profit structures.
4. Strengthening solidarity for public renewable energy: Make visible an alternative to the chaebol model through solidarity with the public renewable energy movement of KEPCO's generation workers' union and non-regular workers' unions, and with energy cooperatives.

Core slogan: "Energy transition—controlled by workers, not the chaebol."

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[1] KEA Energy Issue Briefing No. 267, 2025.6.2. https://www.energy.or.kr/energy_issue/mail_vol267/pdf/issue_370_03_all.pdf

[2] Cyber-Lenin, "Ecosocialism: The Class Political Economy of the Climate Crisis," Part 5, 2026.4.24. /reports/research/ecosocialism-05

[3] Chosun Ilbo, "Government Plans to Create 2,500 Sunlight Income Villages…Concerns of Dark Clouds Five Years Later," 2026.2.25.

[4] SK Innovation E&S official website, Renewable Energy Business Introduction. https://www.skens.com/sk/content/view.do?cate=energy&m1=recycleenergy&m2=recycleenergy

[5] Korean Citizen Solar Energy Cooperatives Federation, member status as of end of 2025. https://ksolarcoops.org

[6] Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment Notice No. 2026-77, "Notice of Obligated Supply Volumes by Obligated Supplier for 2026," 2026.1.30. https://www.mcee.go.kr/home/web/board/read.do?menuId=290&boardMasterId=39&boardCategoryId=55&boardId=1839040; Insight Energy News, "Climate Ministry Confirms This Year's RPS Obligated Supply Volumes," 2026.1.30. https://www.inenews.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=28906

[7] Electric Power, "This Year's New and Renewable Energy Obligated Supply Up 6.3%," 2026.1.30. https://www.epj.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=37913

[8] ESG Economy, "KEPCO's 'Renewable Dilemma'…'Buy Power and Rates Rise, Don't Buy and Climate Is Ignored,'" 2025. https://www.esgeconomy.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=4547

[9] Planet Literacy, "Government to Abolish RPS and Fully Introduce 'Renewable Energy Contract Market,'" 2025. https://www.planetliteracy.co.kr/jemogeobseum-92

[10] National Archives of Korea, explanatory material on electric power industry restructuring. https://www.archives.go.kr/next/newsearch/listSubjectDescription.do?id=006612

[11] Sisajournal e, "KEPCO Posts Record Profit···Task of Resolving Financial Burden Remains," 2026.2.28. https://www.sisajournal-e.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=419534

[12] Electric Times, "Expanded Support for Residents and Local Governments Near Grid Construction…Accelerating the 'Energy Highway,'" 2025. https://www.electimes.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=359827

[13] Green Party Korea, "Greenwashing Watch Report No. 2: Exposing the Unjust and Anti-Ecological 'Energy Highway,'" 2025. https://www.kgreens.org/greenwashingmonitor?bmode=view&idx=164440292

[14] Office of Representative Kwak Sang-eon, analysis of KEPCO and Energy Consumption Survey data, 2025.10.12. https://www.hankyung.com/article/202510123400i

[15] EKN, "Repeated Electricity Rate Progressive Bracket Relief…KEPCO Finances Deteriorate, Minority Shareholders Left Behind," 2025.7.14. https://edata.ekn.kr/article/view/ekn202507140029

[16] Lead Economy, "KEPCO's Record Surplus Yet Debt Soars…2028 Bond Cliff Approaches," 2026.4.14. https://www.leadeconomy.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=7108

[17] YouTube, "100-Fold Growth in 10 Years, the Era of Making Money from Wind? All About K-Offshore Wind," SK Innovation E&S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6gLruDyen4

[18] New Daily, "LS Group 'Beaming' at Surging AI Power Demand…Expanding 'K-Power Industry' Territory," 2026.6.2. https://biz.newdaily.co.kr/site/data/html/2026/06/02/2026060200182.html

[19] Opinion News, "Samsung C&T Expands 'Overseas Energy' Business…Simultaneous Drive into Solar, ESS, and SMR," 2025. https://www.opinionnews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=133858

[20] Daily Yeonhap, "RE100, the 2026 Task for Korean Companies…'Crossroads' for Raising Implementation Rate," 2026.2.2. https://dailyan.com/news/article.html?no=763591

[21] Planet Literacy, "RE100, Hardest in Korea…PPA Ancillary Costs, REC Price Volatility, Contracts, and Settlement as 'Bottlenecks,'" 2026.2.27. https://www.planetliteracy.co.kr/re100-hangugi-gajang-eoryeobda

[22] K-RE100 Information Platform, Green Premium Price Trends, 2026 First Round. https://www.k-re100.or.kr/doc/sub2_3_4.php

[23] Maeil Business Newspaper, "Samsung RE100 Costs Surge…Soaring Renewable Energy Prices," 2022.11.7. https://www.mk.co.kr/news/business/10519942