South Korea plans to invest 37 trillion won ($28.5 billion) from 2009 to 2022 on new power plants, including 12 new nuclear plants, to boost fuel efficiency and cut emissions, Seoul's energy ministry said on Sunday.
South Korea, the world's fifth-largest crude importer, will also build seven new coal plants, 11 LNG plants and one heavy fuel plant by 2022, but it will get rid of three existing coal plants, six LNG plants and 13 heavy fuel units to boost efficiency, it said in a statement.
"The plan is to generate more low carbon power while decreasing the use of high-priced reserves such as LNG and coal. Under the plan, the fuel cost will be about 56 percent lower than this year," the ministry said.
The total number of nuclear power units will rise to 32, or 32.92 million kilowatts, by 2022 and acount for 48 percent of the country's total power generation, from 34 percent this year. The overall electricity power capacity will increase to 100.89 million kilowatts by 2022, up from 71.36 million by end-2008.