South Korea’s share of solar electricity generation has grown from less than 1% in 2016 to over 4% in 2021. But this is still well below the international average.
Across Asia, solar has proven increasingly popular. Asian countries now make up five of the top ten economies in terms of installed solar capacity, including Japan in fourth place and South Korea in ninth place. A decade ago, only two countries in Asia (Japan and China) were among the global top 10.
The trend reflects the global acceleration towards wind and solar energy, which have doubled since 2015 to deliver a record tenth of global electricity in 2021, according to Ember’s Global Electricity Review.
However, Japan and South Korea still remain highly reliant on fossil fuels to generate more than half their electricity needs.
Japan generated 68% of its electricity from fossil fuels across the whole of 2021, and recently began building a new coal plant in Taketoyo in central Japan. South Korea was reliant on fossil fuels to generate 56.2% of its electricity last year.
According to the IPCC’s latest analysis, wind and solar power need to generate more than 40% of the world’s electricity by 2030 to keep climate change at or below 1.5 degrees of warming.