According to Yonhap News,

South Korea aims to establish a nationwide "energy expressway" by the 2040s as part of efforts to respond to soaring demand for electricity sparked by the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and expand the use of renewable energy, officials said Wednesday.

The "energy expressway" project refers to a government plan to build high-voltage direct current (HVDC) infrastructure across the nation. HVDC is a next-generation power technology that lowers the inefficiency of long-distance power transmissions and helps with the integration of renewable energy from different sources.

The initiative was announced as part of the presidential state affairs planning committee's policy road map for the Lee Jae Myung administration.

Under the plan, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy will first construct advanced infrastructure along the west coast, which will house renewable energy clusters, in the 2030s, before extending it to the south and east coasts to form a U-shaped energy corridor covering the entire nation by the 2040s, according to the presidential committee.

To this end, the government plans to expand the total length of transmission lines that deliver electricity from power plants to consumers by more than 30 percent from the current 37,169 circuit kilometers (ckm) to 48,592 ckm by 2030.

The project aligns with the government's goal of boosting the nation's renewable energy capacity to over 78 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 from the current 35.1 GW as part of broader efforts to achieve carbon neutrality.

"Just as the opening of the Gyeongbu Expressway in 1970 transformed the flow of people, logistics and the economy, the envisioned energy expressway will play a key role in reshaping South Korea's industrial landscape, energy flows and the fate of regional economies," said Song Kyung-hee, a co-chair of the economy subcommittee of the policy planning committee.

Song said the government will also work to develop the climate technology industry into a new growth engine for the economy while devising measures to support the private sector's efforts toward carbon neutrality.


nyway@yna.co.kr

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Source: Yonhap News (August 13, 2025)