Seonam Wastewater Treatment Center leads Seoul's solar energy future

Seoul Seonam Wastewater Treatment Center located in Gangseo District, Seoul, has a solar power farm, covering part of its facilities. Two dark rows in the center are the solar panels./ Courtesy of Seoul Seonam Wastewater Treatment Center

By Kim Se-jeong

Seoul Seonam Wastewater Treatment Center (SSWTC), located near the new apartment complex in Magok, Gangseo-gu, is one of Seoul's four facilities dealing with water contaminated by human use.

Yet what makes it stand out among others is a solar power farm with 14,000 solar panel modules covering the roof of its facilities.

Last year, the solar farm produced 5,781,959 kilowatt-hours of electricity which is equivalent to "providing electricity to almost 1,600 households for one year" according to Eun Hee-young from Seonam Environment Technology Co., which is responsible for operating the wastewater treatment facility.

The generated electricity was sold to Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO).

The project began in 2011 with the installation of solar modules with a 1,300-kilowatt capacity, followed by further installation of modules with a 2,995-kilowatts capacity.

The solar farm at the SSWTC is the biggest of its kind in Gangseo-gu and Seoul's second-largest.

"Seoul has no free land to install solar panels. So what we do is install them on roofs of public facilities, like wastewater treatment facilities and train yards," a city official told The Korea Times.

The SSWTC made Gangseo the most active player building solar energy infrastructure among the city's 25 districts.

According to the city's statistics, the district has enough solar panels to produce 27.1 megawatts of power, followed by Songpa-gu which can generate 18.1 megawatts.

In 2018, the district was recognized by the city government for its active renewable energy drive.
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In addition to SSWTC, the district government has solar panels on public buildings and other installations with a capacity of 489 kilowatts. The district's new housing in Magok has renewable energy sources incorporated into building construction, contributing a lot to the city's push for cleaner energy. A growing number of district residents have installed solar panels on their building roofs or on their apartment verandas to have access to cheaper solar energy for their households.

Seoul sees future in solar energy

What Gangseo is doing is just part of Seoul city's renewable energy drive.

Solar energy, together with fuel cell technology, is the most important pillar of the city's renewable energy policy.

"Given the city's situation, we found solar the most viable option," a city official responsible for the city's energy policy said.

According to experts, Seoul has an average 3.2 hours a day during which it can collect power from the sun.

The strong solar energy policy, and renewable energy at large, is spearhead by City Mayor Park Won-soon.

Months before Park took office in 2011, the nuclear power plant disaster in Fukushima took place. In 2012, Park announced a plan to save energy reliance on nuclear power plants and to make a transition to renewable energy sources.

Under this plan, the city began installing solar panels on roofs of public buildings and other small facilities.

The city also invited residents to participate in the energy transition. It encouraged city residents to install solar panels on the roofs of their homes or in their apartment verandas with high subsidies.

It also encouraged small communities in the city, for example apartment residents, to act together to generate solar energy for their communities and provided administrative and financial support to aid them in such pursuits.

By 2014, Seoul saw its annual energy consumption reduced by 2 million tons of oil equivalent, a great success. By 2020, the reduced energy is estimated at equivalent to 6 million tons of oil generated power.

According to the Seoul Energy white paper, 158,529 households installed small solar panels for their homes between 2012 and 2018.

The citizens' participation in solar energy production has made Seoul's initiative an example for communities in other parts of Korea and even other countries.

The city's goal is now to install solar panels for generation of 1 gigawatt of power across the city and to make 1 million households run, to varying extents, on solar energy by 2022. By 2040, the city projects renewable energy reaching 23 percent of the city's total energy supply.

According to Seoul's Green New Deal plan announced on Wednesday, the city will launch a team of 30 Seoul residents whose mission is to find additional spots to install solar panels. The team will start work later this month.

The Seoul city government's solar energy policy is in line with the Korean government's renewable energy policy.

Korea' greenhouse gas emissions grew a lot in the last decade, and under the threat of global warming, it is pressured to reduce the emissions.

Korea projects to increase the portion of renewable energy in the national electric energy mix to 20 percent by 2030 and sees more opportunities with solar and wind energy.

Swearing into office, President Moon Jae-in pledged to phase out coal-powered power plants and shut down some nuclear power plants. The process is underway but critics say it is too slow and that the government is not living up to its initial promises.

Globally, a growing awareness of climate crisis urgency is expediting the transition to renewable energy.

The international research results showed that to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, the world's greenhouse gas emissions will need to drop by half by 2030, as well as reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

Net-zero emissions can be achieved when human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are balanced out with removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

In 2018, the world's solar energy capacity was 486 gigawatt, almost 20 percent of the entire renewable energy capacity, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IREA).

"Renewable energy development needs to grow even faster to ensure that we can achieve the global climate objectives and Sustainable Development Goals," said Adnan Z. Amin, the director-general of IREA.